


Harry Potter and the Pale Horseman

by alexandertheII



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Do-Over, F/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22389526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandertheII/pseuds/alexandertheII
Summary: There is not much Death cares about. However, when someone violates the Natural Order of things, he does care. And Tom Riddle violates the Natural Order of Life and Death.But as we know, Death is cunning, and in the end, he will get what he is owed. To realign the world to how it should be, he gives Harry three choices: Stay dead, go on, or go back.With his 'saving-people-thing' as strong as ever, what could Harry choose but to go back?Time-travel story, a bit bashy in the beginning. I ported this from FFN and am updating as I work through the old chapters catching all the irregularities dispersed throughout them when they were first published. That means I have 51 chapters ready and just waiting to be published.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 70
Kudos: 413
Collections: Harry Potter Fics





	1. The Pale Horseman

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all. This is my story from FFN I've chosen to upload here as well to catch (possibly) a wider audience and because it might (in the future) allow me to write some stuff FFN simply would not.  
> As I said in the summary, I will be posting chapters as I work them over and at the same time as I update them on FFN.  
> Please, enjoy reading and leave a review.  
> alexandertheII

** Chapter 1: The Pale Horseman **

“Harry Potter,” he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. “The Boy-Who-Lived.” None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his — Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear — He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

OOOOOOOO

Harry awoke on cold floor, the worn linoleum smelling a little iffy to his nose.

_“Wait a second… Cold floor, iffy linoleum floor,”_ he thought, thoroughly confused by this afterlife he was now in. Through his confusion, something else struck him as weird: He was naked as the day he was born. At least, that was that he assumed he had been born like. The moment he realized his rather embarrassing state, a smart pinstripe suit manifested itself around his body, including tie, slippers and even some rather nice cufflinks.

Harry stood up, feeling lighter than ever before, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. Just as he had started to get his bearings, his admittedly muddy thoughts were interrupted by the first sound he had heard since being struck by the killing curse.

“Join me, Harry,” he heard a measured, oddly cold and yet polite voice say. It came from a central table in what Harry now believed to be the stereotypical American diner.

_“Huh, the afterlife is a diner,”_ he thought as he approached the man sitting at that particular table with his back to Harry, cutting what was obviously pizza.

“Sit, eat!” the man intoned, his voice still measured, but now with a distinct tone of order to it.

Thinking it best to comply, Harry rounded the table to get a good look at the mysterious stranger who seemed so unfazed by everything that was going on. The man had a gaunt face, combed back, dark grey hair over a receding hairline and a look of such disinterested indifference it was very disconcerting. He was dressed in an impeccable dark suit, with a coat slung over the backrest of his chair. It was immediately discernible where Harry’s clothes came from.

“Who… Who are you?” Harry asked the first question that came to mind.

“Oh, I have many names, so many I don’t even remember them all. The Egyptians used to call me Osiris; the Greeks preferred Thanatos or Hades and to some I am the Pale Horseman. Does this answer your question?” he explained and looked at Harry expectantly. The young man could only nod slowly, before taking a hard gulp. He knew all of these names, as he now knew who he was sitting in front of.

“You’re… Death?” he asked, only to be pinned down with a hard, emotionless stare.

“Oh yes. You might ask yourself, why do I bother with you? After all, in the grand scale of things you are rather insignificant, are you not? One tiny little being, on one tiny little planet in a solar system so very unimportant, how would you be of any interest to me?” Receiving a small nod from Harry, he continued, “Well, you see. I am currently find myself unable to take care of some things that must be done, as I am trapped in some backwards village in what you call the United States; only on this plane of existence, between life and death, can I speak to you.”

Harry could only stare at the strange man, Death, as he called himself. He cut off another piece of the thick, cheesy pizza, pushed it towards Harry and indicated for him to eat.

“The natural order has been damaged,” Death stated bluntly, showing the first real emotion Harry had seen from him, and it was slight anger. “The one you call Riddle has mutilated his soul and escaped Death. He is even less than a bratty child, a bacterium, throwing a temper tantrum because his daddy didn’t love him. And this thing managed to cheat me? The soul is to be whole, and when life ends, it ends.”

Still, Harry could only stare in confusion at who he now understood to be a primordial force. There from the beginning of time up until the bitter end. Suddenly, his gaze was drawn towards a ring on Death’s finger adorned with a single, white stone. Harry had seen and felt enough magic to know that this was way beyond anything he had ever experienced or imagined.

“I have, what you could call a leash around my neck, so I cannot take care of him on my own. Therefore, I propose a bargain: You will be able to go back, as much is certain even without our little trade, or you could go on; it might be the easiest way out for you.”

The young man started to have an idea there was to be a third option and could not help but ask, “I guess there is a third option?”

“You will go back in time to a point, where you can put the natural order back better, follow fate in a better way, name it what you will. You could prevent a great number of deaths that went against the natural order, as they were premature,” Death answered brusquely.

Inside Harry, a battle was waging that was in no way smaller than what had occurred on the Hogwarts grounds. His sense of duty, his willingness to protect was clashing with his weariness, with how tired he felt, tired of suffering, tired of being fate’s play ball. In the end, only his ‘saving-people thing’ could win out and he gave a pained nod.

“Very well, some advice for the way then: Do take care to actually make the hard decisions this time around, would you. Also, beware the two youngest redheads and their mother; she seems quite fond of mind-altering potions.”

Harry was now getting angry, how dare this guy imply Ginny and Mrs. Weasley in something like this.

“If you mean that…” he started angrily only to be interrupted by Death snipping his fingers. In an instant, Harry was lucid.

“Still have something to say?” the still annoyingly calm Death opposite of him asked. “You might not even be the only one, if you catch my meaning. Now, last advice: Think before you act, do not trust the old meddler, a visit to your local bank, alone, is always helpful, look into your pocket when you arrive and, if you have the time, visit Chicago. The pizza is delicious.”

And before Harry could utter one more word, everything around him faded into nothingness again.

OOOOOOOO


	2. Back to the Past

** Chapter 2: Back to the Past **

Harry awoke on what felt like the next morning on an extremely uncomfortable mattress. Staring up at the ceiling of the second bedroom in Privet Drive, he was brought out of his reverie by an indignant shriek. In the corner of his room, perfectly alive and obviously miffed about not being greeted immediately by her _new_ owner was his beautiful owl.

“Hedwig,” Harry pressed out in a low gasp and dashed towards the very surprised owl. Of course, he knew that this bird had been there when he had ‘fallen asleep’ the previous evening, but this other Harry had terribly missed his faithful companion, his most intelligent of all the owls out there. When she had died in the old timeline, he had been too ashamed to really grieve for her, after Mad-Eye had fallen it seemed so silly to be mourning a ‘mere pet’.

Now there was no such thing holding him back, and even though Hedwig seemed a little disturbed, she had never been known for refusing either attention or ministrations in form of petting. As she was currently receiving both, she looked at Harry in what passed for a contented smile in an owl.

Looking down at himself, Harry tried to determine _when_ he was, before he was taken aback at the ridiculous notion of having to ask that question in the first place. Skinny, small, overly large clothes. Nothing to find out when he was, although it could not be later than the summer before third year, otherwise he would be at least somewhat taller. There was his school trunk, so it was before his first year; he was 11-year-old Harry Potter again. As for the date, the calendar on the wall with neatly crossed out dates told him it was the 24th of August, around a week before Hogwarts. It seemed like the ‘Natural Order’ had been disturbed very early, if the point in time was any indication.

Suddenly he remembered what Death had said about The Weasleys, about Ron and Ginny. “Ginny.” Saying the name out loud left behind a strange mixture of feelings. On one hand, he still longed to see her, longed for her familiarity and for the familiar feelings for her. On the other hand, those feelings felt distant and somehow muted now, like waking out of a dream or overcoming an obsession. All very weird indeed.

He decided to give it time, maybe that way his feelings would settle down somewhat. He was about to grab for some textbook out of sheer boredom when he realized something else; he was now a seventeen-year-old man, caught in the body of an eleven-year-old boy preparing to attend the first year of a school he had already spent six years at. He could admittedly have done a little better, but the content of the lessons was bound to be rather underwhelming for him, at least the first few years, before he could take electives.

“Huh Hedwig, what do you think?” he asked his owl and he could swear he got his answer in the form of an exasperated look that seemed to say, _‘How should I know, I don’t know the problem’_. He had done this a lot in the old timeline, just talking to Hedwig and then interpreting the owl’s reactions any way he liked. It was fun, but it also provided a sounding board that was never judgemental or condescending, something many humans in his life did not really excel at.

He knew he had been carefully avoiding a topic Death had told him about: Ronald Weasley. Death had indicated he might not be the only one hit with some rather distasteful potion, something he still had trouble believing, and Death’s words could only mean one other person: Hermione. Somehow, he had never really questioned the girl’s relationship with Ron, if you could call it that. In retrospect, it did seem rather iffy for smart, ambitious, down-to-the-ground Hermione to helplessly fall for someone like Ron. Not that there was anything wrong with Ron, Harry quickly assured himself, although it seemed like only ‘going through the motions’.

Harry felt a massive headache coming and had no idea if it was due to the difficulties of adjusting to his ‘new’ life or the soul-

“The soul fragment,” he exclaimed, eliciting an indignant cry from Hedwig for startling her followed by her leaving through the window, probably to find some quieter place to sleep. The walk into the forest was so far away for Harry, he would not be able to believe it, had he not known it had just been a few hours for his consciousness. A few hours since he had made his peace, since he had been ready to die and since he had been looking forward to die, just a little.

It was painful to admit, but there it was. The moment it was clear he had to die, or at least it seemed like it, he had been relieved. All the pain, all the sorrow would end. There were his mother and father waiting for him, Sirius, Remus, Tonks and so many others. Now the only one of those he had around was Hedwig. He had even been looking forward to seeing Dumbledore even if his old headmaster would have to answer some hard questions, especially with Death’s _‘old meddler’_ comment.

With a deep breath, Harry tried to regain some semblance of control over his erratic thoughts, knowing full well the only thing that could calm him down right about now was one of Madam Pomfrey’s calming draughts.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione Granger was giddy. She was so giddy, she was almost giggling. It was very much unlike her to be even _almost_ giggling.

She just could not help herself; she was excited. In only a few short hours she would be sitting on the train, she would go to a new school where hopefully everyone was as interested in learning as she was. No more taunts, no more glares or cruel pranks. No, just other people like her, she was sure.

She had already read all her books cover to cover at least once, including those she had as light background reading. Her parents did not mind at all, they were just happy she occupied herself and was not taking up any of their oh-so precious time. The last rather sobering thought brought to her other reason why she was happy to go to Hogwarts: she was able to get away from her parents.

It was not that they disliked their daughter, Hermione knew that, but she was an attentive girl and could see quite well there was a barrier between her and her parents. It had always been there and had only grown stronger after Professor McGonagall’s visit. This teacher, who Hermione immediately liked very much, had informed her and her parents about Hogwarts, the wizarding world and what Hermione was; a witch.

All in all, Hermione was one excited little witch.

With an unusual spring to her step she made her way from her upstairs bedroom down to the kitchen, where she found her parents reading dentistry journals and drinking tea. She slowly went towards her father and waited for him to finish the page to start talking.

“Father,” she greeted him evenly. Horatio Granger looked up at his daughter without saying anything and just raised one brow slightly, signing for her to continue. Hermione, adept as she was at reading human faces by now, immediately caught it and continued, “Would it be possible to leave for King’s Cross early? I don’t want to be late…”

She was interrupted by her mother, Phyllis, “I will drive for 10:30. Was there more?”

“No mother. Thank you,” Hermione closed the petty excuse of a conversation and went up to her room to once again read _‘Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts’_. Yes, she was definitely looking forward to conversations with some actual human beings.

Maybe _‘Hogwarts, a History’_ would make for a good conversation starter.

OOOOOOOO

In a car outbound out of Surrey, Harry was on edge. His state of mind was not so much rooted in his anxiousness about what he would find, but far more in if what he had found the last time was the truth. Starting to question everything you know would be difficult for just about everyone, so it came as no surprise that Harry Potter was not faring any better than could be expected from the average seventeen-year-old.

Shortly after arriving in this time, he had already decided to at least give his suspicions about the Weasleys time to carefully simmer inside his mind. What he had come up with was neither pleasant nor particularly joy-inducing.

Firstly, the meeting at King’s Cross seemed to be too much a coincidence by now, especially considering the fact that Mrs. Weasley, who by this point in time must have made dozens of trips there, would loudly ask for the track, let alone shout out her frustration with all the muggles around her.

Secondly, neither his nor Hermione’s relationship with the youngest Weasleys seemed completely unsuspicious. While he was not completely sure about Hermione, he himself was by now convinced there had been some potion involved between him and Ginny. How much she knew Harry had no clue and he was still desperate for her to have been kept in the dark about the whole thing, but at this point he thought he was ready to accept nearly anything. Come to think of it, her infatuation with him had always bordered on pathological. Very worrying indeed, especially in hindsight when it was not overshadowed by the hilarity of her distracted antics.

His thought process was interrupted by his uncle pulling into the parking lot of the train station, bellowing for Harry to “make it quick”. Just like last time he was ‘escorted _’_ to the wall between platforms nine and ten, given a few nasty remarks and an even nastier smile and left alone.

However, this time around Harry was not a clueless eleven-year-old. Confidently he walked towards the wall between the two platforms and promptly found himself in front of the scarlet steam engine that was the Hogwarts Express. He had already decided to settle in a compartment early, ward the door with notice-me-not charms keyed to him and (hopefully) Hermione. Of course, it would only work if her magical signature was the same one he remembered from the countless times of raising wards around their campsites during the hunt for the Horcruxes.

Otherwise, it would be Plan B. He hated Plan B.

OOOOOOOO

Harry’s future/past best friend was a little indignant. Although her mother had promised her she would be at the station by 10:30, it was almost ten minutes later that she actually got there and if they had been in a traffic jam, they should have just accounted for the possibility and started fifteen minutes earlier, at minimum.

They came by a large group of redheads so utterly abnormal they could only be magical, at least considering what Hermione remembered from her visit to Diagon Alley. They were just standing there, the portly woman who seemed to be the mother looking around probably searching something, the two boys who could only be twins, a boy and a little girl.

 _“Strange bunch,”_ she thought, before continuing on her way.

Phyllis Granger was as unfazed as ever in light of her daughter’s mood and simply stalked towards the wall between platforms nine and ten. With a rather stiff smile she looked at Hermione and started talking, “Enjoy your time at school, Hermione.”

“I will. Thank you, mother,” Hermione answered and unceremoniously went through the divider, even though she flinched slightly as the wall drew ever closer.

OOOOOOOO

Harry was settling into his compartment, nice and cosy behind his wards. After the last year he just could not feel safe without some added magical protection, so deeply ingrained had the instincts and tactics of survival become. He was monitoring the platform for any interesting developments, but so far he had just seen the same as the last time. There was Neville looking for his toad, Lee Jordan with his overly large pet spider and all the other chaos he had come to expect with large groups of wizards and witches.

About ten minutes before the scheduled departure something finally caught his eye; a large group of redheads entered the scene. Just like last time Ginny was crying and her family tried to soothe her. Except Percy of course, who had gone off to strut around with his prefect badge.

“Hey, next year you can go, too,” one of the twins tried to soothe their sister.

“Yeah, and we’ll send you tons of letters, maybe even a nice Hogwarts toilet seat…” the other twin finished off, followed by a glare from their mother which quickly made them flee, ostensibly to look at Lee’s giant tarantula.

“And…” Ginny continued to sniff a little. “What about my Harry?”

 _“My Harry?”_ Harry thought to himself. Hearing that from a ten year-old-Ginny Weasley was rather disconcerting.

“Ron will look for him on the train, dear, then you can meet him next summer when he comes to visit,” Mrs. Weasley continued to soothe her daughter while immediately cranking up Harry’s concerns to new levels. How could she know he would be there next summer?

Harry put thinking this particular revelation off for some later date, because for now he had something else to concentrate on. He fished the parchment he had found in his pocket after returning out of his bag and began to review it.

_This ritual will allow one person, no more, to regain the memories they had on the old timeline up until the point you ‘died’._

_Choose wisely._

The rather short note was for some reason signed with an hourglass and accompanied by another sheet of parchment with detailed instructions on how to proceed.

Harry needed help, he knew as much. What he also knew was that he needed a confidante, someone he could trust completely and without reserve, who never hurt him intentionally. That meant Hermione.

It was also the reason he hated Plan A as much as he hated Plan B.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione was looking for a toad. Some boy named Neville had come by her compartment earlier looking for his toad and immediately she knew that maybe he could be a friend. Also, she loved helping people with things.

She had canvassed almost half of the train when she came to a compartment with a single occupant. Said occupant was a small, skinny boy with raven-black hair and clothes that were obviously cast-offs. But more importantly, he seemed to be doing magic.

“Have you seen a toad? Some boy named Neville lost his earlier, I’m helping him search,” she started the conversation, before quickly berating herself for her rudeness.

 _“Damn Granger, next time introduce yourself first,”_ her sometimes surprisingly foul-mouthed inner voice chastised her.

“No, sorry. But it’s nice of you to help him search. Do you want to join me for a quick break?” he invited her. His voice seemed honest, but she had experienced way too many times that it was not good to be too trusting of other children. Therefore, she carefully made her way into the compartment to sit across from the boy.

Before she could get anymore out, suddenly distracted by the boy’s hypnotizing eyes, he started to talk again.

“I’m very sorry, Hermione. Stupefy!”

And she was out cold.

OOOOOOOO


	3. Memento Mori

** Chapter 3: Memento Mori **

Harry cringed a little as he saw the red light of the stunner hit Hermione squarely in the chest. She slumped down on the bench unconscious and after a brief expression of shock her face turned so serene in her conscious mind’s absence it was almost a shame to disturb her. Alas, he had work to do.

He started chanting incantations the moment he was sure Hermione was alright, both of them hidden away behind protective and secrecy wards that went way beyond what he had dared to throw up before, in case he could not correctly key her in. The wards were soon followed by a space extension charm that gave him enough room to work on the ritual.

It was not overly complicated even though Harry was sure Death himself had created it, what with the little reminder of the Natural Order in the end; Memento Mori, indeed. He set to work with his chalk to draw the required seven-pointed star and the ritual circle. Then he lay out the one single ingredient Death said he would need: Water from the river Mnemosyne, opposite and yet partner of Lethe. Remembrance and oblivion, two sides of the same coin, really.

Lastly, he carefully placed Hermione in the middle of the circle, gently lifting, lowering and carrying her. He could have used a levitation charm, of course, but this somehow felt better. He needed the reassurance she was really there.

His preparations done, Harry started the ritualistic incantations, “Corpus est fessus, sed animus recordari vult.”

He moved towards the first point of the star and continued, “Ergo recorda!”

The next point. “Ergo recorda.”

And the next. “Ergo recorda.”

This he did until he had been at every point, said the command seven times. Now, he stepped into the ritual circle, the small phial with water already in hand. Harry took just a few drops of the liquid and dropped them on Hermione’s forehead, carefully avoiding making her bushy brown hair wet. Why death had given him a whole phial he had no idea, considering it only took a few drops.

He took a step back and braced himself for the next part. He was not looking forward to this, another reason both Plan A and B had sucked to begin with. Still, however reluctant he might be, he had to finish the ritual or Hermione would never awake.

“Nunc expergisce et memento mori.”

Immediately, Hermione started convulsing.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione’s mind was a whirlwind of emotion, images, sounds and knowledge. Memories that were hers while at the same time being someone else’s tore through the bits of consciousness she had left.

A redheaded boy…

A large serpent…

Something that looked like a toad on two legs…

A huge black dog…

And along everything this black-haired boy she had met earlier, although in some of the memories rushing through her he was considerably older.

 _“Harry, his name is Harry,”_ her mind suddenly told her. It seemed correct somehow.

From that point forward things started to make more sense, started following a timeline of sorts. It all ended with Tom Riddle’s taunts.

“Harry Potter is dead!”

OOOOOOOO

Hermione’s convulsions really started to get to him. It was horrible to watch a person he cared about so much in so obvious pain. Her teeth were clenched and her body was rigid and covered in cold sweat, the eyes dancing around madly behind her lids. Just when it was getting too much for Harry and he wanted to avert his eyes he saw what he had been waiting for all along.

Chestnut brown eyes flew open, frantically searching the compartment for his green ones. As she found them, and with a grace and speed that belied the no-doubt strong aftereffects of her seizures, she rose from the floor and with a loud “Harry!” she was in his arms, sobbing. Harry waited for her, secretly enjoying getting another one of her hugs after he had already made peace with the idea of never being hugged again when he went into that forest.

Sometime later, Harry had no real idea how long it actually was, she loosened her grip a little, raised her face from his tear-stained shirt and looked up at him. “Harry, what is going on here?” she asked in such a small, un-Hermione like voice in nearly broke Harry’s heart. And so, Harry told her about being killed, about his meeting with Death and about his choices. Apparently, Hermione had no problem determining what he would choose.

“Let me guess, your saving-people-thing made you take the going-back option?” He nodded in response and she continued her questioning, “Why were you in that forest Harry, why were you alone?”

This was it, the question he had expected but hoped nonetheless he would never have to answer. If the idea of having a piece of Riddle inside of him was revolting to him, what would Hermione think? Still, he owed her an explanation, more than anyone else.

“I was a Horcrux,” he blurted out, like ripping of a Band-Aid. Hermione’s eyes grew wide and for a moment Harry feared she might let go of him and flee the compartment. His fears were alleviated though, when the bushy head of hair only drew closer to him again and the girl in his arms all but squeezed the life out of him, accompanied by a muffled “Oh, Harry!”

“I thought I was gonna die, Hermione. And you know what? Dumbledore set me up to it, prepared me like a pig for slaughter,” now it was Harry’s turn to break down. It was never a good idea to show feelings around the Dursleys, but this was Hermione. With Hermione he could feel safe, with Hermione he could be himself and, as oddly as it seemed, mourn for himself.

Pressed against his chest Hermione was trying for something like soothing cooing, an endeavour in which she failed magnificently, but which still managed to calm him down somewhat. Just like with magic, it was about intent, after all. She managed to coax him into sharing more details, including the warnings Death had given him. He could literally watch the pondering going on inside her head from the way she was worrying on her lower lip and frowning. It was heartening to see some things never change.

“Well, I did see the Weasleys standing outside the station waiting for someone, combine that with what you overheard on the station it is mightily suspicious,” she thought out loud with Harry nodding along fervently.

“I still don’t know what to believe though. I don’t wanna think badly about the Weasleys. Do you?” he asked and this time it was Hermione’s turn to answer with head movements. She shook her head in response.

“Whatever happens, we should make some plans. I can write up a schedule.”

 _“Yes, some things never do change,”_ Harry thought with a light heart.

OOOOOOOO

The rest of their trip went very much as they remembered their last first train ride on the Express, with the exception that they could merrily laugh at the annoyed look of both Ronald and Malfoy, who repeatedly went by the compartment. Guessing what they wanted was not overly hard, but the advanced wards Hermione had added on top of Harry’s were proving to be more than capable of deterring two overeager first-years.

As the train pulled into what the wizarding world called a train station, how very ignorant these people could be continued to amaze Hermione, they followed the other students along the path to the lake. Again, Harry was greeted by Hagrid, but this time he immediately introduced him to Hermione.

Despite the time they had spent there, the castle at night as seen from the lake was as magnificent as the first time that she had seen it and if his expression was anything to go by, Harry thought so too. The group of first-years followed first Hagrid then Professor McGonagall through the bowels of Hogwarts castle and into the antechamber Hermione remember from her original sorting. Only this time around she was a lot less nervous. What followed was the _‘Your-house-is-your-family’_ talk, although the number of times their housemates had turned on Harry during the old timeline made that a little harder to believe. At least they were a little like the Dursley family in ostracising Harry.

Completing their good luck was that Harry had been able to evade both Malfoy and Ronald’s attention long enough that his identity would not be known before the sorting. It was a short delay, a minimal reprieve really, but Hermione knew he was thankful for every second he was not the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ _._ The ridiculous moniker and Harry’s public image were actually important parts of the plans Hermione had drawn up with him. If only they could…

Her internal planning session was cut short by Professor McGonagall who bid the new students to follow her into the great hall.

OOOOOOOO

Harry followed the other students through the doors of the great hall. Other than the last time he was not overawed by the sight, but instead chose to meticulously watch the head table. He would have to look for more than one thing.

Firstly, the easiest way to determine, whether he was still an accidental horcrux was Quirrell. If the scar reacted to his presence the soul fragment was still there, if there was no reaction it was not. Harry and Hermione heartily hoped for the latter.

Secondly, Dumbledore was a target for observation. There were few people in Harry’s life one could classify as ‘the old meddler’, actually only one. After hearing about what fate Dumbledore had planned for Harry, even Hermione had to admit something was fishy. The idea that he would manipulate Harry to kill himself shone a completely new light on the ‘Greater Good’ thing.

The students were lined up in front of the head table and the hat sang his song. Afterwards the sorting progressed pretty much as expected from the last timeline. The first thing that caught Harry’s eye was Hermione’s sorting.

“Granger, Hermione,” she was called by her future/past favourite professor.

This time around, the hat took much longer to make a decision than the last time. At one point, Hermione blanched with impressive speed and Harry could easily identify her ‘thinking face’.

“Seems like they have a lot to talk about,” he mused shortly before the hat opened its, for lack of a better word, mouth again.

“GRYFFINDOR,” it declared, and the hall broke into measured applause.

So, the sorting continued until, with a small shudder only an experienced student would ever come close to seeing in her, Professor Mc Gonagall reached the Ps on her list. Moving past Pansy, she looked at him.

“Potter, Harry,” she beckoned.

With purposeful, measured steps Harry went to the stool, the whispering students in his back. He sat down and the professor put the hat on his head.

 _“Oho, another one with knowledge of the future… don’t deny, I see it’s there. Normally I would debate where to put you, but you already have knowledge of your sorting and with your knowledge of it, it becomes official,”_ the hat explained inside Harry’s head.

 _“Okay. Then why am I still sitting here?”_ he asked.

 _“Oh, I have a few points I would like to raise with you. Be wary of Albus, especially with your knowledge of what is yet to happen, or might happen, now that you are here. It puts you in a better position to act than our esteemed headmaster. Alas, you know as well as I do that he thinks no one above himself or in a better position to act,”_ the hat continued, with Harry thought-nodding in response.

_“Therefore, a word of warning: Do not trust Albus Dumbledore, especially with your knowledge of what happened the last time. He will think of himself as the only one able to handle such knowledge and when he’s done with you, you would be lucky to remember you’re Harry Potter. Now let us finish this sorry business.”_

“GRYFFINDOR!” the hat declared for the whole hall to hear.

Afterwards, there was not much of note during the rest of the sorting until the last few students were reached.

“Weasley, Ronald,” was herded onto the stool and the hat placed onto him. An unusually long time passed before the hat made its declaration.

“SLYTHERIN!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I’ve been asked about it, here’s the translation of the ritual Harry used.   
> Corpus est fessus, sed animus recordari vult  
> The body is weak, but the mind wishes to remember  
> Ergo recorda!  
> Therefore, remember!  
> Nunc expergisce et memento mori  
> The first part just means, ‘now, remember’, while the second part comes from medieval monks’ Latin and is (most likely) a shortening of the phrase ‘memento moriendum esse’ meaning ‘consider, that you have to die’.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, leave a comment either way.  
> alexandertheII


	4. A Weasel in the Snake Pit

** Chapter 4: A Weasel in the Snake Pit  **

“Weasley, Ronald,” said boy was called and made his way towards the stern professor. He just knew she would make him work. He hated working for things. Ron sat down on the stool, eagerly waiting to shortly join his brothers at the Gryffindor table. And Harry Potter of course, his soon-to-be best friend.

 _“Hmm, another Weasley. Interesting…”_ he heard the voice of the hat in his mind.

 _“Yeah yeah, don’t remind me. Just put me in Gryffindor and I’ll be out of here,”_ he admonished the stupid rag. Yes, _another_ Weasley was at Hogwarts. In this Weasley’s opinion, the best Weasley to date.

 _“Oh, that is quite the ambition I see there, the ‘best Weasley to date’, huh. Befriend Harry Potter so you’ll be somebody, very cunning. Alas, I don’t think that will help you come into your own.”_ The hat deliberated for a while before he continued, _“You know, Albus wanted me to place you with Gryffindor, but that just seems wrong now, doesn’t it.”_

 _“It’s exactly right, you bloody rag. Gryffindor is the best house and I deserve the best,”_ Ronald stated with conviction, completely missing the mental frown he could so easily have picked up from the hat.

 _“How rude. Oh, this sense of entitlement, cunning, ambition. You’ll enjoy your time here, boy,”_ the hat thought back sarcastically enough even Ronald ‘barely-enough-emotions-for-a-tea-spoon’ could pick up on it. Did this stupid piece of cloth not know who he was, who his family was?

“SLYTHERIN!” the hat exclaimed, and Ron nearly missed it, distracted as he was with his inner ranting.

OOOOOOOO

Harry sat there at the Gryffindor table a little dumbfounded while the hat’s words were still echoing through the great hall.

“SLYTHERIN!”

It seemed like this time around, the hat had its own ideas about the boy’s character. On Ronald’s face, he could see the beginnings of a Weasley temper tantrum and, for the first time that he could remember, Harry was looking forward to it; he was not disappointed.

“WHAT!” Ronald shouted, tearing the hat off his head. “You stupid rag, I’m no BLOODY SNAKE!”

And just like that, Ronald Weasley had managed to lose the minimal respect he had in his new house, as much was obvious. The decal and trim on his robes already showed his house colours, but apparently, he had other ideas about that.

“I demand to be resorted!” he said bluntly, looking at both the hat and McGonagall, only to receive no reaction from the former and a distasteful sneer from the latter.

“Mr. Weasley, rein in your temper, you will not speak to me with such disrespect! Detention, all through the week,” she reprimanded the still rebellious student. “As for your sorting, once you have been given knowledge of your house, the sorting is irrevocable and unchangeable. You will either be a Slytherin or not at Hogwarts at all,” she continued and stared down the still mutinous looking boy. “Have I made myself clear?” After giving the professor a nod that looked everything but repentant, he shuffled towards the Slytherin table in total silence.

That was certainly new, and Harry could not shake the feeling the hat had seen something in Harry and Hermione’s memories that made this decision easier for him. Ron had never exactly seemed cunning before, but if you were really cunning, would you let people know that you are? The truly cunning thing to do would be to hide it and at least Ronald’s strategic mind was there to see whenever he revelled in soundly beating someone in chess. Winning never got boring for the envious boy, especially against Harry. In retrospect, Harry could see this now. It was a way for Ronald to feel superior and another reason to be cautious around him.

The sorting continued and then ended with “Zabini, Blaise” once again sorted into Slytherin to applause from the whole school unlike any Slytherin had heard in a while. It seemed they could forget the house rivalries when confronted with something as distasteful as one Ronald Weasley.

Professor McGonagall made off with the hat and the stool, then the headmaster said something weird and then the feast could finally begin. Harry was a growing boy, after all; a growing boy who had just spent time with the Dursleys, nonetheless. He looked at Hermione who gave him an expression that said, “We’ll talk later,” and let her eyes flicker over to Neville. Harry understood; they had talked about this after all.

“Hi, I’m Harry Potter. You’re Neville, right? Hermione met you on the train and said you were alright,” he needlessly introduced himself to the boy sitting next to him. Said boy gaped a little and nodded eagerly.

“Yes, I am. Nice to meet you, Harry,” Neville greeted back. During all of this, Neville’s eyes never once gravitated towards Harry’s scar. Even if he had not known Neville from the previous timeline, this would have made an immediate and very positive first impression.

“I’m sorry I bailed out on you, Neville. I just found Harry on the train and we knew each other. I sat with him and we forgot the time. Did you find your toad?” Hermione piped up. Harry knew her well enough to know she would feel guilty for abandoning Neville in his search, even though it was for a very, very good reason.

“Y-Yeah,” Neville managed to stutter, seemingly overawed with the kindness shown to him. He had told Harry the last time around that he had been incredibly nervous coming to Hogwarts, what with not being sure whether he was a real wizard or not. His grandmother with her insistence on him using his father’s wand and her constant criticizing was no help either. And so, they passed the time of the meal talking with Neville, ‘meeting’ the other first years and Sir Nicholas and generally having a good time. It was amazing how approachable they all were without Ronald around to ask everyone for their blood-status.

 _“And maybe with a little confidence boost for Hermione and me, too. She sure tends to be a bit brusque when self-conscious. Me, I’m just not very outgoing,”_ Harry mused.

A few seats further, he could see Percy fuming about one of two things alternately, he guessed: Ron’s inability to get sorted in the right house and the hat’s inability to sort him into the right house. It was rather amusing to watch his glares shift from the Slytherin table to the head table and back to the Slytherins. He would bet there would be a Howler headed towards Hogwarts very soon; whether it would be for Ronald or the teachers, who knew.

Fully stuffed with a second helping of everything including dessert, Harry and Hermione were now waiting for Dumbledore’s vaunted welcome speech. They did not have to wait long, for soon the venerable old headmaster rose from his throne to speak to the masses. In the past/future this had always impressed the hell out of Harry, but now, having learnt more about Dumbledore and his past it just struck him as a little suspicious for a headmaster to use the imagery of a ruler, a king.

"Ahem -- just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

This time Harry had no problem coming up with ideas why Dumbledore would look at the Weasley twins as he pronounced this. Still, the abject lack of sufficient disciplinary action when the perpetrators were known was a little disconcerting. Harry had no qualms to admit he had broken his fair share of rules during his first stint at Hogwarts, but most of the time he had had a genuine reason. At least what he thought was a genuine reason.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

And there it was: the bait. Looking back with a little more distance, it really was rather obvious. Barmy as Dumbledore was from time to time, he would never entrust the safety of something as precious as the Philosopher’s stone to a few traps that could be overcome by a group of first years. Not with means like the Fidelius charm at hand. Or maybe he would, in his arrogance believing Voldemort could never break the mirror’s enchantment.

 _“That leaves only one conclusion for why the traps were there, you know?”_ he remembered Hermione’s voice from their discussion on the train. _“It’s bait either for Voldemort or for you, possibly both. Don’t you think it is a bit convenient that the year you return to Hogwarts Voldemort and a Philosopher’s Stone should both be there?”_

It was no nice conclusion, Harry knew as much, but neither he nor Hermione had been able to reach another. At this point, the only thing that could make the whole story any more foolish was, if there actually were a stone involved.

Before they knew it, they were herded to the common room by Percy and the fifth-year girl prefect and soon the two found themselves in ‘their’ seats by the fireplace, where Harry surprised Hermione with a wide grin.

“Hermione, I looked at the back of Quirrell’s head like five times and my scar didn’t hurt once. You know what that means?” he asked merrily.

The crushing Hermione-hug was enough to answer that question.

OOOOOOOO

Ronald Weasley’s evening was progressing far less nicely. With his family being anything but respected, a good portion of Slytherin house was already against him. Those members that were not particularly interested in pureblood supremacy or prepared to give him a chance despite his family being poor blood-traitors just because he was a pureblood, he had managed to alienate with his dirty snake comment. The glares he received all along the way to the common room were hostile in the least.

Said new Slytherin though, could not find any fault with himself, he was sure about that. The hat had simply acted out of spite or as a particularly cruel prank. They would all see what a courageous Gryffindor he was, and McGonagall would beg him to become a member of her house. Then, he would become Harry Potter’s best friend, just like it should be. Not that he really had any plan on how to succeed with that idea; he assumed it would just happen. After all, how could people not see how great he was?

They had just been told the password to the common room (ambitio, it was Latin or something) and ambled into the common room when the door opened again and a rather glum looking, greasy-haired man in billowing black robes entered. The older students all stood alert and the first years scrambled to do the same. All of them, except one.

“Mr. Weasley, I see you lack attention and adaptability,” he said with a perpetual sneer at the offending redhead. “I already had my doubts about a Weasley in my house; usually I am spared from that disgrace.”

Ron was getting seriously pissed off now. How dare this overgrown bat ridicule his family?

 _“Wait till my mother hears of this,”_ he thought, already with pleasant images of a cowed Snape apologizing to him before his mind’s eye.

“Get yourself under control, you dunderhead and assume some posture worthy of this noble house,” he was now barked at by Snape, joined with snickering from the listening Slytherins.

No, Ronald Weasley’s evening was definitely not going well and it was about to get worse. He was meeting his new dorm-mates.

OOOOOOOO

Harry awoke in his bed in the Gryffindor dorm for the first time in what to him amounted to about a year. Of course, it was not really _his_ bed, it was not even his dorm. Being one student short compared to the last time, the first-year boys were put into a different dorm room. Each of them now had a normal bed in a separate alcove, while the centre of the room was occupied by one single large table with a number of straight-backed chairs. The chairs looked suspiciously like the ones McGonagall always created. It would make for a great place to do homework.

Following his usual morning rituals, he made his way down to the common room where he met Hermione, already buried in a book.

“Good morning,” he greeted her, immediately eliciting a sunny smile. “Might I ask why you’re reading first year textbooks? You could easily take your NEWTs now,” he continued, whispering into her ear, trying to ignore the warm feeling coursing to him at the close contact.

“Well of course, it wouldn’t do to appear too advanced now, would it? We have to be able to pretend we’re first years. Knowledgeable first years maybe, but still first years,” came the whispered reply, again cause for a little shiver with Harry.

“You’re right. But there’s no chance I will ever take Divination again, I hate prophecies and Trelawney gives me the creeps,” he answered, receiving an eager nod in response. “Anyway, breakfast?”

Without even an answer, at least verbally, Harry felt himself being dragged towards the portrait hole. Hell, even repeating her complete time in school seemed to have Hermione very motivated to learn.

“So, what are we gonna do now? I mean, we talked about the big stuff, but what about the details. How do we evade suspicion and so-forth?” Harry asked just as they were cutting through a secret corridor to get to the Great Hall faster. “How do we explain that we know the secret passages, for example?”

“Good point, so no more secret passages for at least a while,” Hermione conceded. “This is going to be hard; I’m so used to cutting short.”

“I know,” Harry chuckled back.

Still amused, the two entered the rather empty Great Hall. Despite the early hour, Professor McGonagall was already there handing out timetables. When she saw her two new Gryffindors her features were graced by one of her small, far-in-between smiles. It seemed she approved of early risers. Not that Harry had ever been anything other than that; he just hadn’t used that time properly before now.

“Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, I trust you have found everything quite well?” she greeted them both in her thick Scottish brogue.

“Thanks, Professor. And yes, we only got lost once,” Hermione reported in such striking similarity to the actual eleven-year-old Hermione it was mind boggling.

“Very well, these are your timetables. Please see to it that you arrive on time.”

With that, she handed out their timetables and went along to some of the other still sparse Gryffindors.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione, Harry and Neville, the two had taken the boy under their wing lest he get lost too badly, were sitting in Professor McGonagall’s transfiguration classroom, amusedly eyeing the tabby cat with the square markings sitting on the professor’s table.

They had all made an early appearance so as not to forgo the experience of seeing the inevitable late-comers running into the animagus trap. Just about everyone was there, with only one person notably absent and said person had red hair.

The moment the lesson was to begin McGonagall, to astonished gasps from about one third of the class, jumped from her table, transforming into her human form mid-jump.

“Good morning class. Before we do anything, I expect you to copy down the safety instructions on the first pages of your books while we wait for stragglers. Do I make myself clear?” Her gaze made it quite clear she expected to be obeyed. Quickly, she resumed her cat form and mad herself comfortable on her desk.

Ten minutes later, the class was busily scratching away with their quills and the professor, cat eyes ever watchfully patrolling, when a certain redhead wheezed his way into the classroom.

“Uuh, bloody lucky. Can you imagine what old McGonagall would have said if I’d been here after her?” he proclaimed loudly and at no one in particular, eliciting a few pained looks from some of the other Slytherins at his complete lack of anything even remotely resembling subtlety. His dumb grin vanished immediately as the cat on the desk set for a jump and transformed into the very professor, he had just called old while grinning like mad.

Hermione leant closer to Harry so as not to be heard above the stern reprimand their ‘old’ professor was currently giving Ronald. “I don’t know what I was thinking kissing Ronald. Our first few years I just found him irritating, barely tolerated him because he was your friend. No idea what came over me…” she whispered almost angrily.

This had Harry thinking again about one of the items Death had talked to him about, namely love potions. Was it possible Hermione had actually been drugged? And if yes, by whom?

 _“Well, that is rather easy to say. Either Ron or Mrs. Weasley, I know she is not above using a love potion, said so herself. And what about Ginny…”_ Harry mused. The whole rest of the lesson Harry could not help but continue to do so. In the end, he reached a rather disturbing conclusion.

He and Hermione were now sitting in the Room of Requirement at Harry’s request. This time it was a nice cosy living room with only a couch, a big, fluffy rug and a fireplace. Harry drew a deep breath to steel his resolve, before he began speaking, his voice more confident than he felt.

“Hermione, I think I’ve been raped. And I think it’s at least been tried with you as well.”

OOOOOOOO


	5. How to Dodge a Potion

** Chapter 5: How to Dodge a Potion **

For several minutes, there was only silence inside the room of requirement.

This silence was severely grating on Harry’s nerves. Of course, he knew Hermione would never judge on the grounds of what he had told her of himself, about what he had insinuated happened with her. Still, there remained a slight panic; would she see him differently now? Would he now be a victim to her? And, as much as he honestly did not care about it, how manly was it for a guy to be ‘raped’ by an attractive girl?

 _“Stop it, Potter. You were not in your right mind, your senses befuddled, of course that is rape. You were RAPED not_ ‘raped’ _, for Merlin’s sake,”_ he chastised these annoying doubts crawling around inside his head.

Suddenly he found himself crushed inside the strongest Hermione-hug he had ever received in both timelines, even if it was from an eleven years old Hermione.

“Don’t you dare and think this changes anything between us, you hear me, Potter?” he heard her muffled voice from somewhere around his chest. In that moment he realized, that this very hug, this show of emotional intimacy, was so much more pleasurable than what he had had with Ginny the night before Dumbledore’s funeral.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he again heard Hermione’s voice from somewhere down at his chest.

 _“Good question,”_ he thought to himself. _“Do I want to talk?”_

“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, of course. But I think it would help.” Damn, did she know him well. Hermione had now moved her head away from Harry’s chest and instead parked it on his shoulder, yet the hug was still as comfortingly close as before.

“It’s okay, Hermione. I think I would like to talk, actually…” he surprised himself with how steady his voice sounded.

“But you don’t know how to start?” she asked, receiving a sad nod in return. “That’s fine, I’ll ask then. Why don’t you start with how you come to that conclusion?”

That was easy, that was something he could do.

“Well, of course I told you about Death and his warning about potions. I did not want to believe anything like that about Ginny at first, but from the moment I came back I’ve been feeling… I don’t really know how to describe it,” Harry told her silently, steadily. It really was rather hard to explain how he felt; returning from death to seven years earlier could do that to you. “Best I can come up with is different. There’s just no more of the passion, of the obsession I had for Ginny. When I heard and saw Ron today, and you told me how he rubbed you wrong all those years I just remembered how annoyed I had always been by Ginny being a fangirl.” He took a deep breath to order his thoughts a little before he continued, “Does that make at least a little sense?”

“It does actually, more than a little. Ginny always was disturbingly eager when you were concerned,” Hermione answered him while thinking out loud. She had her ‘thinking Hermione’ out now, complete with frown and worrying of her lower lip. “Harry do you think you can train people with a love potion?”

“Lost me there, Hermione. Care to explain?” Harry answered in befuddlement.

“It’s like this; there was this guy named Pavlov, and he did some experiments with dogs. He would ring a bell and then give them food. After he had done that for a while, ringing the bell was enough to provoke the reaction the dogs would normally only have for food. He measured the amount of saliva they produced, if I remember correctly…”

Harry shot her a questioning glance. He did not quite follow her reasoning, but if his logic was without major flaws, he had just been called a dog.

“What, I read it in a book on psychology over the break,” Hermione defended herself. “And no, I do not think you are a dog, we have your godfather for that. No, what I mean is the following: If, by means of this potion, you are forced to have affectionate, obsessive feelings for someone long enough, then our mind would link feeling these feelings with things we associate with this person. It’s a little like a placebo actually,” she explained. “That would explain why you didn’t snap out of it when we were hunting Horcruxes.”  
  


Harry knew she deliberately emphasized the ‘you’, because she had not really taken in the possibility of her having received the same potions.

 _“Well, now’s as good a time as any,”_ he mused. “Hermione, what about you? What do you think, especially now that you’ve remembered how irritating you always found Ron?” Harry asked her gently. There was nothing gained in avoiding the topic, only pain and having to deal with it later, possibly when he was not available to comfort her.

“I… I don’t know. Or maybe I do know, but just don’t want to know. I never went _that_ far with Ron,” she pressed out and Harry could not stop the pulse of happiness that went through him at hearing that.

“But that doesn’t make the thought any less disturbing. I think I got fed the same stuff as you, now that we’ve talked about it. We were talking about you though, and I just started rambling on…” she admitted shyly.

“No problem. Your rambling is always very soothing to me,” Harry soothed her. She had been building up to another rant, this time how bad she was as a friend for either not noticing what was going on or for side-tracking their discussion; probably, even both.

She giggled a little in a very un-Hermione-like way then she gave a big sigh and snuggled closer to his body. “I don’t really feel up to talking about this anymore at the moment. If you have to, I’ll listen, but it’s just all a bit much,” she said in a despondent voice.

“That’s okay, Hermione. It felt good to just talk about it, even a little. Even more important, how do we avoid something like this in the future?” he asked the now thoughtful witch snuggled into his side.

“I don’t really know. There’s tons of possibilities, but many of them have flaws, bigger or smaller,” she replied a little dejectedly. Harry gave a nod, then he surprised Hermione by pulling out a roll of parchment from his bag and starting with a ‘one’ on the left side.

“Let’s make a list,” he proclaimed to a now thoroughly flabbergasted Hermione.

 _“Oh yes, I do lists now, too,”_ he thought, amused by her shocked expression.

OOOOOOOO

Ronald Weasley was happy. Well, not really happy, but as close as it got since he had been sorted into Slytherin. At least he counted himself lucky after on the first morning no owl had dropped a howler on his breakfast and his tardiness in coming to transfiguration had ‘only’ earned him two detentions (although Ron was sure McGonagall was just angry that he was completely justified to call her old).

This feeling of general luckiness, right alongside his appetite, made a beeline for the door rather quickly when, on the second morning of him being a Slytherin, he saw a ruffled owl flying unsteadily towards his seat, a red envelope in claw. It seemed like his mother had only needed a little more time to refine the message.

With trembling hands, Ron took the scarlet letter from the owl and opened it.

“RONALD WEASLEY,” he heard the magically intensified voice of his mother boom through the hall, followed by sniggers from about the whole student body. “HOW DARE YOU DISHONOUR YOUR FAMILY LIKE THAT? A SLYTHERIN? A WEASLEY IN SLYTHERIN? I EXPECT YOU TO PROVE YOURSELF WORTHY OF BEING RESORTED INTO GRYFFINDOR! HOW ASHAMED YOUR SIBLINGS MUST BE, ALL GRYFFINDORS AND NOW THAT! SHAME ON YOU!”

With that last remark the howler changed his focus from the now thoroughly red Ronald Weasley, to the completely blanched rest of the Weasley family sitting at the Gryffindor table. “Percy, again your father and I are so proud of you for making Prefect. Fred, George, you forgot a pair of underpants, I’ll send them to you in the next few days.”

Having finished his entire message, with both the twins and Percy now thoroughly reddened as well, the letter burst in flames, while the entirety of the great hall was trying to hold onto their meal from sheer laughter.

OOOOOOOO

“Do you think that means Fred and George share underpants?” Harry asked Hermione in a horrified voice. The idea was extremely disconcerting.

“Maybe…” Hermione mused, enjoying the utterly terrified expression on her friend’s face. She would never be a great prankster, but this she could condone. Seeing he was still quite shaken at the thought, she decided to take pity on him.

“No, I don’t think so. Actually, I think the twins are more different than most people see, or even try to see for that matter,” she explained while discreetly pointing towards them. “Look, even now you can see it: The left one is the more outgoing of the two, he talks through his embarrassment, while the other one is rather reserved at the moment, he hides a little behind his brother’s antics.”

Hermione even knew which twin was which, she had figured that out in second year of the old timeline, but Neville was listening interestedly from where he sat across the table. It would not do to attract attention.

“I see what you mean,” Harry conceded. It did not look like a hard task for him, as it allowed him to banish the thought of the twins sharing underwear.

“Merlin Hermione, how did you get so good at reading people,” asked Neville with slight awe in his voice.

“I don’t know, it’s just something I can do,” she answered him while trying to not look into his eyes. She knew very well why she was so good at this; years spent trying to read the subtle, almost non-existent things her parents called ‘emotions’ had taught her very well in that regard.

 _“Wish I had known that the first time I was eleven, would have made a lot of things easier to deal with,”_ she mused as she continued with her fruit salad.

OOOOOOOO

That afternoon’s session saw their first DADA lesson in the new timeline, of course with ‘p-p-poor,

st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell’. Despite the fact that he was a stumbling, Voldemort-controlled mess he was actually not the worst teacher they had ever had in the subject. Considering others who taught it had been Umbridge and the liar Lockhart that was not much of a compliment, but he actually knew the subject matter and taught at least a little.

In Quirrell’s lesson, they were yet again subjected to the talk of responsible use of magic, although why this particular teacher gave that talk, Harry could not fathom. Either Dumbledore had grown complacent over the years and not checked up on his new recruits anymore, or Voldemort had simply overestimated the scrutiny with which the headmaster guarded over his school’s teachings.

The class was dealing with the basics of defensive magic, both against humans and creatures, while Harry and Hermione who had dealt with the subject so extensively, they could probably sit at least their OWLs at a moment’s notice were working on their own little project.

In front of Harry was a list (in his own handwriting, nonetheless) of possible ways in which they could counteract attempts to dose him and Hermione with any potions. Up to this moment, all the possibilities were somewhat flawed.

_“Scarpin’s revelaspell is out of the question, too suspicious for two first-years to use that,”_ he went through the list again. _“Same with detection spells. Regularly taking an antidote doesn’t work either, considering the number of different potions available; also, we could develop unhealthy reactions to those, too. Regular flushing potions are just not my thing, and what if we’re both hit at the same time, then we can’t even dose the other with the potion to snap them out of it…”_

In front of the class, Quirrell was now demonstrating something with a large lizard.

_“What’s with the man and reptiles anyway. Gotta be Voldemort shining through but using a snake would be too obvious a clue even for Dumbledore to ignore,”_ Harry’s mind went astray, bored in mulling over the same thing yet again.

He was now intently taking in the rest of the DADA classroom, various diagrams of curses and counter-curses, pictures of dark creatures and many, many books. One of the pictures stood out from others in that it did not show a dark creature, but a kind of clay figure, the ‘skin’ filled with fascinating symbols.

_“That’s it, runes,”_ he was overcome by a flash of wit which he had to immediately share with his best friend in the world. So, he wrote ‘What about runes? Something on my glasses? You would look great with glasses too’ on a used sheet of parchment and handed it to Hermione.

She immediately grinned at the first suggestion but started looking a little pensive at the last one. As Hermione shot him a questioning glance, he tried to go for what he thought was an encouraging smile and a happy nod.

Minutes later, the still subpar ramblings of Quirinus Quirrell had his thoughts drifting aimlessly again.

OOOOOOOO


	6. The Peculiar Effects of Latin

** Chapter 6: The Peculiar Effects of Latin **

Harry’s idea of enchanting glasses to be able to spot possibly dangerous and/or mind-altering potions was immediately accepted by Hermione; the idea of her having those glasses as well was a harder sell.

“Come on, Hermione; It will look great on you,” Harry tried to convince her for the umpteenth time.

“No, it won’t. I’m already the bossy bookworm, I don’t want to be ‘four-eyes’ too,” came her now already automatic answer.

“I’ll give you the bookworm, but the bossiness is way better than first year the last time, and all the people that matter know it’s only because you want all of us to learn as much as possible,” he continued his pitch in what he hoped was a tone of encouraging hilarity; her only answer was a huff.

 _“Okay, time for a new approach. Best carrot for Hermione: learning stuff. Second best carrot for Hermione: keeping Harry safe,”_ he determined, deciding on a new approach.

“But Hermione, think of all the new things you could learn! You could even make loads of different models from this, seeing in the dark, infrared, all that stuff,” Harry exclaimed enthusiastically. He could now see Hermione’s armour of insecurity was weakening; time to go all in.

“And, what if I ever not notice I’m being fed something, or am unconscious and someone is giving me potions? You’d have to be able to spot that too, wouldn’t you?” Harry could see he had her at that but decided to give her a bonus. “Maybe, along the line, we can even make contacts with the same enchantments, I’m sure they would sell like crazy.”

At that, Hermione’s enthusiasm for new things to make and learn could not be halted anymore; the prospect of exchanging the glasses for contacts later seemed to make even her last argument against the idea mute. Harry really hoped she would reconsider though, because he could not imagine Hermione looking bad with glasses; as a matter of fact, Harry thought with the right glasses she would look absolutely stunning.

It was their second first Friday at school, when their discussion had reached this state; this meant they would have their ‘first’ potions lesson after breakfast, for which they were currently heading to the great hall. Having future knowledge of Snape’s mistreatment, while also knowing the kind of questions he would be asked, Harry was very much looking forward to embarrassing the overgrown bat. Although, eventually, he had found out Snape’s true allegiance, his attitude was still not worthy of him being a teacher; add to that the major obsession the man had with his mother, combined with the ease with which he had condemned both him and his father to death if only Riddle would spare Lily Potter, it meant Harry was thoroughly put off by the man. Possibly even more so than at any time the last time around.

So, it was with a mix of apprehension and nervous excitement that he sat down next to Hermione for breakfast, debating what they wanted to do that day. Harry had received an invitation from Hagrid for tea that afternoon, and they were both definitely intending to go, but they were left in a quarrel as to how to deal with big, lovable, if blabbermouthed man.

“I say we go, become friends with him again and leave it at that; you know he idolises the man, so we can’t tell him anything important. He would go straight to Dumbledore. I know it hurts, I like him too, but that’s how it’s got to be,” Hermione laid out what they both knew already.

Harry did indeed not like it, but he knew Hermione was right. They had not been able to really come up with a plan regarding Hagrid, but both wanted him to be their friend, if only to prevent him from burning down his house with a pet dragon. However, he had no idea how to deal with the man’s hero-worship of Dumbledore.

“I know, but it sucks,” he agreed, only to be scowled at by his friend for the language used in expressing that same sentiment. Light chatter continued all through breakfast after their friends, of which Neville was becoming a particularly good one, had come to join them. Over their pleasant conversation. It was soon time to make their way to the dungeons.

All along the corridors, Harry was followed by the same, now-familiar stares, and the usual whispering. It had not abated since the sorting and he knew it wouldn’t, at least not for quite some time. He could only hope that making more friends and being less unapproachable would curb some of the less than pleasant rumours.

In front of the classroom, the usual taunts were exchanged with the Slytherins, although Harry and Hermione both tried to hold back. Surprisingly, that was a position they shared with Malfoy, who instead chose to distract Ronald for them. It seemed like putting these two together in the same house had not done anything to curb their animosity; instead, it seemed like it had only served to make them hate each other even more. Their interactions were truly fascinating to watch.

Just as they remembered, Snape made his roll call followed by the pompous potions introduction speech, repeatedly insulting the whole of them as dunderheads as he went along the way.

“Potter!” he called Harry out. “What well-known potion would I get with ingredients such as lacewing flies, fluxweed and boomslang skin?”

Harry was elated. While it was not one of the questions, he had been asked the first time around, he knew this; he had been involved in brewing it once, after all. Still, Harry could not help but lead Snape around a little.

“It is a polyjuice potion, Sir, lacewing flies stewed 21 days, fluxweed gathered at full moon and boomslang skin shredded,” he replied with all the respect he could muster for the despicable excuse for a human being teaching this class; asking a first year about a sixth year potion just to feel better about himself, really.

Snape only sneered at his answer, no doubt already explaining it as arrogance of the ‘Potter brat’. He just continued his questioning, “What would I get when, to a draught of elderberry, I added powdered valerian root and peppermint oil?”

“A rather powerful remedy for lowering a fever, Professor,” Harry answered, still valiantly trying to suppress the annoyance in his voice. He thought he was surprisingly successful, too.

Snape, obviously disconcerted he was getting nowhere, moved on to bully someone else, leaving Harry to ponder how he could get a decent potions education at Hogwarts. He knew Snape would not be the way to get that for either him or Hermione. His friend was great at following instructions out of the books, minutely so and good with saving potions that would otherwise have been ruined, but that was not all potions were about; Slughorn had taught them that. There was a lot of creativity and skill in combination involved in being a real potioneer. That was something ‘instructions are on the board’ just did not teach you. Hermione for her part always wanted to learn more, so she heartily agreed with him. That meant getting rid of Snape, or at the very least getting out from under his thumb.

They both did not bother with getting angry at Snape because both knew that at heart, he was a bitter and lonely man and the pain of his own miserable existence the cruellest punishment imaginable. Why someone like that should be teaching children was anyone’s guess, though.

OOOOOOOO

The weeks in Hogwarts went by with little to note and soon it was October. However, counting in what constituted as ‘normal’ at Hogwarts, little to note still included taunting, small duels in the corridors and even the occasional student hurt during flying practice, only this time around it was not Neville, who had been under tutelage from Harry; instead, it was Malfoy who had managed to overcome the enchantments of the broom by posing around with too risky a manoeuvre.

Harry and Hermione’s studies were going well, too. Hermione had finally agreed to wear glasses after another few days of prodding and encouragement by her Harry and they had landed on delicate, rectangular frames for her.

 _“Wait,_ my _Harry?”_ Hermione interrupted her thoughts. It was true, she and Harry had spent a huge amount of time together and some feelings she had once suspected herself of having, were _maybe_ coming back, but he was _Harry_. Hermione and Harry, Harry and Hermione; that was not a couple, that was two thirds of the golden trio, or rather the new golden duo.

 _“Get a grip on yourself, Granger!”_ she chided herself, not exactly knowing what for; thinking she liked him or trying to talk herself out of it? Of course, there had been a few moments over the years where she thought maybe there was something between them. If she was honest with herself, it might have been as early as third year, rescuing Sirius with him, that she had liked Harry. Clinging to him on Buckbeak had been really, very comforting.

However, Hermione had always hidden these feelings away inside a small little box inside the depths of her consciousness, so sure was she Harry could never be interested in her like _that_. And with Ron in the picture and Harry, as usual, being so incredibly noble, not to forget emotionally completely underprepared by the upbringing he’d received, there had never really been a chance to explore a possible relationship. Mix in love potions and it was all very convoluted.

In the end, she could not deny the small shiver of pleasure always shooting through her when she heard Harry praise her, for whatever it was at that moment, looks and academics equally. Neither could she deny how proud she was of him for trying to take learning more seriously this time around, knowing what lay ahead of him. He would never say so out loud, or maybe he even would, but one of Harry’s main motivations was to keep the people close to him safe. At the moment, that did not include terribly many people.

Yes, this was another thing she had to put on her list of things to do better this time. No ridiculous pining after Ron (naturally or artificially created) and explore these funny feelings Harry could conjure up inside of her. It would probably be up to her to bring it up though; Harry was just not the type to do this kind of exploring uninvited.

OOOOOOOO

It was during one of their ever-more frequent sittings in the Room of Requirement, currently working on the rune scheme for the glasses, while Hermione was introducing Harry to the ropes of the subject that she could no longer keep a hold on herself.

He had taken to Ancient Runes on a nearly instinctual level and by mid-October had breezed through the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon alphabets of Futhark and Futhorc, but his real interest and skill lay with ancient Greek and Phoenician symbols. It was fascinating to watch how a boy who had generally shown only remote interest in schoolwork after his first three years at Hogwarts, probably due to one Ronald’s influence, took so much interest in this highly complex subject. And, again it did funny things to Hermione.

This time though, it was too much, she had just listened and watched him going on about the particular importance of correctly translating a particular Latin grammatical system when she just had to do something.

“You could of course simply translate it literally, but that leads to really weird sentences. It may also be translated as an infinitive clause… Hermione, what are you doing?” asked a completely flabbergasted Harry, right after he had been chastely but thoroughly kissed by a now madly blushing Hermione.

“Well, I’m kissing you…” Hermione deflated a little at his shocked expression. Did he not like it? “I’m sorry Harry, I shouldn’t have…” she started rambling, only to be interrupted herself this time. Harry was kissing her, and this time it was much less chaste, the fact they were both technically adults in the bodies of eleven-year-olds never crossed Hermione’s mind while she was being held close by _her_ Harry.

OOOOOOOO


	7. Ruminations on the Future

A still broadly grinning Harry Potter was making his way down to the common room after his morning routine. The day before, Hermione kissed him. _Him._ Who’d have thought Hermione could be interested in him like that. The fact that him being enthusiastic about learning obviously appealed to her was not surprising, considering who her last ‘interest’ had been. It also just fit; it was very Hermione to be attracted to something like that.

He was greeted by an equally grinning Hermione in the common room. They had not taken the time to talk about everything last evening, but both had the impression they had taken a very important step. Hopefully, it was in the right direction. What that right direction actually was, they still had not talked about.

_“Do I want Hermione as my girlfriend?”_ Harry asked himself.

_“Yes!”_ came the resounding answer from his unconscious.

Alas, it was neither the time nor the place for this discussion. Instead, he embraced Hermione for a good-morning hug and they made their way to breakfast.

OOOOOOOO

The two had managed to get through breakfast with only a very reasonable amount of awkwardness and were now slowly strolling out of the main gates to enjoy their Saturday under the October sun. From time to time, Harry would throw small glances and subtle smiles at Hermione, only to find her doing the same. Whenever that happened, they would quickly avert their eyes and blush a little. As far as Harry was concerned, it was a fun little game and great in postponing the discussion he knew they had to have.

As they rounded the Black Lake, still enjoying their tense-in-a-good-way silence, Hermione’s hand sneakily managed to enter Harry’s. It was warm, comforting and without any ulterior motivation, just there. Seemingly noticing his irresponsiveness, Hermione tried to extricate her hand from his, but Harry would not have it. He tightened his grip and entwined their fingers. It was a subtle kind of embrace and just too good to let end.

When they finally reached a place out of sight from the castle and the others that were strolling along on the grounds, Hermione erected a nifty little ward that would keep the cold at bay, while Harry conjured a blanket for them to sit on, which they did. He tried instinctively to hug her to his side, but instead she sat across from him, legs cross and a wistful smile on her face.

“Harry, I think we need to have a serious talk,” she started, eliciting a small frightened squeak from Harry. “It’s not what you think,” Hermione quelled his fear immediately. It amazed him time and again how well she knew him. “I just think it is important we talk everything through before we act rashly.” Receiving a nod she continued, “Just imagine, we don’t work out. What then? The only person to know who we _really_ are could end up hating us. We’re the only people who lived through the second war, and we can’t tell anyone else. What if we started dating and we split up. What if I’m not…”

She could never continue her train of thought, because Harry knew Hermione almost as well as Hermione knew Harry.

“…good enough for me?” he continued her sentence in a deadpan tone. “Hermione you’re way better than just good enough for me. And what makes you think we wouldn’t work out? I mean, I admit I have limited experience, but I think you’re way better for me than anyone else and I could not imagine Harry Potter without Hermione by his side.”

This seemed to be exactly the right thing to say or Hermione just violently agreed with the sentiment, because all further thought was vanished by the heated embrace and subsequent kisses now bestowed upon Harry. In her fervour, Hermione knocked him over so that he was now lying on the blanket and happily cuddling and kissing back.

The two out-of-timers spent a few minutes like that, but Hermione’s reasonable side started to reassert itself and she slowed down the very pleasurable activity they were currently engaged in.

“What does that mean for us?” she asked, still a little self-conscious.

“This, Miss Granger, means that I would very much enjoy having you as my girlfriend,” Harry asked the giggling ( _“Hermione’s giggling!”_ ) girl in his arms.

“Well, Mr. Potter, that is quite the offer. An offer I can’t refuse, I think,” she answered through her mile-wide grin. She interrupted her elated new boyfriend as he wanted to start kissing her again. “But I think we have to talk about some practicalities.”

Harry frowned in answer, so he received further explanation. “Harry, were eleven and twelve, for us to openly be a couple now, especially with me being a ‘mudblood’ could dump a lot of trouble on us. Trouble and scrutiny we just can’t use at the moment.”

“I don’t care; I’m not ashamed of you!” Harry stated with the conviction he felt in his heart.

“I know, and I thank you for that. But that’s not the point: Do you think McGonagall keeping a close eye on us because she thinks we’re too young would help us train? Do you think, people looking too closely into why we’re acting more mature than we should be is gonna help us cover up the fact we’re essentially seven years older than we seem to be? Neither of us is good enough at Occlumency to withstand a concentrated search of our mind, at least not yet. Exactly that is what we’ll get when we arouse too much suspicion,” she said in an analytical voice. Still, her sadness shone through, a sadness that must have been visible on Harry’s face as well.

“I would love nothing more than to openly be your girlfriend, but for now I’ll have to contend with the two of us knowing. When the time comes, I’ll be very happy to change public perception to adapt to reality.” Hermione gave him a smile, a smile he now realized she had never given anyone else. It was his smile.

Harry did not answer, there was nothing more to say. Of course Hermione was right, she always was. Instead, he just hugged her closer, enjoying sharing warmth with his girlfriend.

OOOOOOOO

The new couple continued to enjoy their Saturday together and were not seen again until lunch, after which they spent some time with Neville.

“Hermione, when exactly is you birthday?” the shy boy asked his friend, who in turn winced a little. When the conversation had turned towards birthdays and their celebration she knew this question would come sooner or later. Still, she had hoped she could avoid it.

“September 19th,” she answered curtly, hoping Neville would catch the hint and abandon the topic. Alas, luck was not with her.

“What?!” He almost screamed, throwing her a panicked look. She caught Harry’s eye briefly, receiving a sympathetic look, but nothing more. He was as clueless about how to avoid this as Hermione. “Why didn’t you say anything? We’d have thrown a party for you, gotten some presents.”

“I usually don’t celebrate my birthday,” she offered, as curtly as the first answer.

“Why ever not?”

_“Yes, why ever not?”_ Harry knew of course. At her first real birthday party, she had turned six that day, she had prepared a party mostly by herself, because her parents would not help. She had collected her pocket money for a long time, bought cake and invited all the neighbour kids. No one had come, except the one kid she had not invited, her pre-school tormentor.

As far as birthday memories went it was not as bad as Harry’s, the first day he had asked for his birthday, he had received a beating. Still, the whole experience had turned her off the concept of celebrating one’s birthday. Permanently.

Now, for all intents and purposes, she was a grown woman, but the old insecurities kept creeping back up from time to time. There was no escaping the conversation now, though. If not Neville, Harry would gently press her to reveal it and she would be thankful in the long run for sure.

“I really don’t have good experiences regarding birthdays,” she volunteered the smallest bit of information she could hope would be accepted.

“Well, we can change that,” Neville stated with conviction, along with Harry nodding fervently.

It seemed there would be a very belated birthday party for Hermione this year and at least two people were sure to attend.

OOOOOOOO

Harry snickered a little. Hermione, curled up next to him noticed immediately and threw him a questioning glance.

_“It’s almost a glare,”_ Harry mused. _“She must have been dozing on her new pillow.”_

That thought only brought more snickering and a more questioning glance.

“I was just imagining people’s reactions when we finally tell everyone we’re together,” he answered her looks, earning himself a return-snicker.

“Well, enlighten me then,” she prompted him, wearing his smile on her face.

“First, Malfoy; He’ll stride over to the Gryffindor table, probably during mealtime, spout something about mudbloods, you, me, my mother and the purity of the Potter bloodline. Second, Ron; Same place, same time, something about bookworms and why I am interested in you anyway, considering what a better friend he would be.”

That one hit the nail on the head, actually. Ron had repeatedly accosted Harry the last month or so, implying he would like to be Harry’s friend and how he was so much more interesting to hang around with than the ‘know-it-all’ anyway. He was getting less and less subtle with each attempt, and he had never exactly been sneaky to begin with.

“Third, Molly; She’ll be oh so crushed her ‘little Ginny-girl’ won’t be able to catch the boy-who-lived, probably blame Ron for it too. And I think you getting a Howler is a given, how you’re corrupting me with your ‘loose muggle-morals’ and how a proper witch would be better for me.” Receiving a reaffirming nod from Hermione, she seemed to agree with his predictions, coupled with her still questioning look prompted him to continue.

“I just found it funny how all these people think they have any say in how I lead my life. That’s what I was laughing about earlier. What does Malfoy care whether I _soil_ my bloodline?”

“That, my dear Harry, is because to them you are indeed the boy-who-lived. They think it makes you a person of public interest, so they’ll publically take a stand on your decisions,” Hermione explained sadly, what Harry already knew.

“That’s what is so great about you, you know that? For you, I’m just Harry,” he remarked lovingly, a caring smile on his lips. “You know there might not be a future for me in Britain, don’t you?”

With his girlfriend nodding on Harry’s chest, there was nothing more that needed saying.

OOOOOOOO

In potions, the weeks last lesson, Hermione’s apprehension and anticipation could hardly be contained anymore. In only a few short hours she would have her first birthday party where people would actually show up. Neville and Harry had cooked up the whole thing, prepared an unused classroom with a little help from the school elves, thought up an excuse for not having the party on her actual birthday and bribed the twins into getting them a few sweets from Honeyduke’s. Of course Harry could have gone himself, but without the cloak and plausible deniability concerning knowledge of the secret passage to the shop, awkward questions about the source of the sweets would have to be avoided.

Snape had just given his customary “Instructions are on the board” when Harry and Hermione started merrily chopping away at their ingredients. With Hermione as a willing tutor, and without Ronald to run interference, Harry was brewing potions on a level he had never before. Still, more could be learned on the subject and Snape was not the way. It was a problem that needed solving, especially since they would both have to be able to brew antidotes as fast as possible, both against poisons and love potions.

Despite all the thoughts flying through her head, Hermione decided to concentrate on just one thing; she was getting a birthday party and someone else had organized it.

OOOOOOOO

Later that day, a freshly showered, dressed, pep-talked and wound up Hermione was following her boyfriend through the hallways of the castle. They were now in front of a door behind which waited Hermione’s not-so-surprise birthday party, and the jitters were coming back. Before they could turn to full-blown anxiety she summoned all her courage and strode confidently into the room.

“Happy Birthday!” The surprised girl was greeted by a large portion of their year at Hogwarts. Yes this was something she would certainly be enjoying.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione’s predictions had been correct, she enjoyed the party immensely. While there was no big gift-giving or anything, there just had not been an opportunity for most people to get anything, it was the best present she could have received. She had celebrated her birthday and everyone had come. That led to one of her questions.

“How ever did you get most of our year to attend?” she asked her still-new boyfriend sharing the comfy couch in the Room of Requirement.

“Believe it or not, people like you. Now that you’re less pushy with your knowledge, people come to you and are delighted to have understood when they leave again. Now they actually get to see what a great person you are,” Harry smiled back at her, earning himself a thorough kiss.

“If you add concessions curtesy of the Weasley twins and everyone invited was sure to attend. Even some who weren’t, come to think of it…” he continued his line of thought.

“Can you believe Ronald just showed up, uninvited and started harping about not being invited while the bloody snakes were? We just had Tracey and Daphne there, the others would not bother coming to a mudblood’s party,” she managed to press through some of her laughs. “He does know he is a Slytherin, too, right?”

“Yeah, but I bet to him it’s a challenge. I guarantee you, he’ll do something stupid before the end of the year to prove he should be in Gryffindor,” Harry predicted. There was no need to mention that feat would probably include the third floor corridor.

OOOOOOOO


	8. A Test of Courage?

Ronald Weasley was not having a good time at Hogwarts. It was not just that he was a Slytherin now, which was bad enough all by itself, considering he lacked certain Slytherin traits, namely guile and/or family connections; it was also the general entirety of the Hogwarts experience. He had always been the sixth son, but over the last two years he had grown accustomed to being one of only two still at home. That was more attention than he could ever remember receiving.

The only attention he now received was for him being the first Weasley in recorded history in Slytherin, and it was certainly not the attention he wanted. Neither his mother continually pestering him, whether he was making headway with being resorted, nor his sister’s incessant pestering about Harry Potter were helping his mood either. Therefore, he had yet to answer any of their letters.

Of course, all these advanced and sophisticated thoughts were not going on in Ronald’s conscious mind. These were conclusions reached by his unconscious psyche, compelling him to act the way he did: moody, hostile, self-centred and downright uninviting. Again, that would have been no big problem in and of itself, given that the current Slytherin head-firstie was behaving moody, hostile, self-centred and uninviting too. Alas, Draco Malfoy’s parents also had influence and money.

This had led to the youngest Weasley son receiving the worst bed in the dorm, the worst partners in all the lessons and his continuing distractedness led to him receiving some of the worst marks in all of first year, and even he knew that receiving better results than Crabbe and Goyle was really no achievement. How the two sorry excuses for wizards even managed to get into Hogwarts with their more than sub-par magical talent was an indecipherable mystery. One thing was clear though, it was not through impressive theoretical skills either.

Try as he might, he was not even able to blame someone else for his predicament. Besides the headmaster, the Sorting Hat and the deputy headmistress, that is. But if he were Potter, he would not be interested to talk to a Slytherin either; hell, even as a Slytherin he had no interest in talking to Slytherins more than what was completely, absolutely necessary.

That outlook had completely changed though, when he had gate-crashed the bookworms party, only to find two of his Slytherin, well he refused to call them housemates, in attendance too. Granted, Daphne and Tracey never picked on him, but they were also not showing any signs of unhappiness with being in Slytherin. That meant they were already getting dark, if they were not already. All those dirty snakes eventually would, so they were really no surprise at all.

OOOOOOOO

“Harry, you have to eat,” Hermione prodded her still-secret boyfriend.

“But I’m not hungry. I don’t think I can eat,” he complained dejectedly, receiving a sympathetic frown from her.

“I know it’s a hard day for you…” she started but never reached the end of her, hopefully supportive and encouraging, remark.

“No offense, Hermione, but you don’t know the half of it. I know you and your parents aren’t exactly on good terms, but at least they are still there. I will never know who my parents were, just the distorted images other people have of them,” he muttered, almost as if to himself. Only Hermione could hear him.

“Oh, Harry…” no more words were said as Hermione took her boyfriend into the kind of hug socially acceptable between friends. Closer cuddling would have to follow later, somewhere in-between classes and dealing with a troll set loose inside a castle full of children.

OOOOOOOO

Harry, Neville and Hermione had been excused from the feast by a surprisingly teary-eyed Professor McGonagall. When she was confronted with what Halloween now meant for Harry she had shown no compunctions about excluding them from that particular activity. If your house was indeed your family, Harry should not be left alone on such a hard day for him.

Harry had debated with her for a long time about taking Neville with them, but in the end her rationale had won him over; they needed someone else with them to plausibly deny involvement in the troll incident they were expecting to happen shortly. They would just have to make sure Neville was not hurt.

And so they were taking a stroll through the school, while the other pupils were enjoying the feast in the Great Hall, supposedly ‘ _exploring’_ all the secret passages Harry and Hermione already knew, but Neville was pleasant company, making them completely unwilling to complain about this in any way, except that Hermione was unable to comfort her Harry on this very important and rather sad day. They would have to get to that later.

“I can’t believe we found the kitchens. Fred and George boast about always getting food for parties and such, but it is so easy. Such interesting little creatures, house elves, don’t you think?” Neville asked them excitedly just after leaving said facilities, having just had a feast that would at least rival anything dished up for the other students pretty much directly above.

“I still can’t believe Hogwarts is employing an army of slaves,” Hermione answered heatedly. It was the truth, although it went much deeper than Neville knew. She had had many more years to come to terms with that particular piece of information than he thought, and yet she still could not believe it.

“Let me guess, you want to do something to help them,” her boyfriend piped up next to her. Sometimes they played this game, teasing each other with future knowledge. Just the day before, Hermione had gotten invited to the Yule Ball, to which she had agreed delightedly, justifying it with her penchant for Quidditch players. It was not exactly responsible behaviour, but even Hermione could find no harm in it and sometimes; it was an important part of keeping them sane through their whole experience.

“You’re going to have trouble with that, Hermione,” Neville offered with an apologetic look on his round face. “House elves are very happy with who and what they are, at least most of them. Convincing people to free their servants might be hard hard. Doing it when these servants don’t want to be free is nearly impossible.” Noticing the disbelieving looks on both their faces he gave an explanation for his uncharacteristic forwardness in supplying information, “What, my Gran has educated me on wizarding politics since I’ve been, like, four or five. But you know that Harry, same with you, right?” When, at that last remark, he saw the surprised looks on Hermione and especially Harry’s face, Neville’s took on a frown.

“Harry, you can’t tell me you haven’t been educated about politics and house business. You’re the last Potter for Merlin’s sake, of course you have,” the still astonished boy stated. As he only received a shocked look and a shaking head in return, that look of shock was mirrored on Neville’s friendly appearance.

“Neville, I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve heard anything about so-called _‘house business’,_ ” Harry enlightened their friend to shocked gasps.

“Well, I wanted to invite you to my house over the holidays anyway, now that just became so much more important. Grandma can show you the ropes, if you’re interested,” Neville proposed with a wide grin. It was clear he was looking forward to this.

 _“Not as much as I am,”_ Hermione chuckled inwardly. Here was something new to learn, something she had never had the opportunity to learn before. That it could also help with her and Harry’s goals was the small cherry on top of the large ice cream that was new knowledge.

“Count me in,” she heard her Harry answer before she could even comprehend doing the same.

“Won’t you need to ask your par… guardians first?” a bemused Neville inquired.

“They will be very happy about wherever I am, as long as it’s not with them,” Harry answered with a nonchalance that would always manage to rile Hermione up.

Before the expression of fury she could now see on Neville’s face could turn into full-blown rage, Hermione gave her answer, too. “I would love to come, Neville. My parents are out of town anyway, some important social event for British health professionals. Staying with you will be way better than going with them and being hit on by the pre-pubescent sons of doctors.”

After that, they could not intensify their discussion because in that very moment, all their senses were occupied with something else: Noses were suddenly filled with the smell of rot, ears were echoing with heavy footsteps. Still, their eyes had gotten the worst part of the deal. In front of them stood a mountain troll, easily the height of two grown men, with large elephant-like ears on a comparatively tiny head, the whole thing covered by pale grey skin.

Hermione had expected the sight, of course, but still she felt eleven again, standing in front of that hulking mass of flesh. As if it had just been hours of memories since she had fled after charms class, crying for being alone, friendless, unloved.

Unwanted.

“Holy shit!” Neville’s rather unusual use of foul language managed to get her out of the stupor of bad memories.

 _“You can do it, Hermione,”_ she was encouraged by an inner voice that had recently started to sound suspiciously like Harry’s very real voice talking right next to her.

“How the hell does a troll turn up in the castle?” he asked in a movie-worthy pretence of surprise.

“Does it matter? Run!” Neville screamed next to them. And that’s what they did, even though the two sort-of time travellers already had a plan. Had to look believable, after all.

“What should we do?” Hermione asked in a breathlessness she did not have to play.

“Charms class,” Harry answered in their pre-planned fashion. “Did you see its club?”

Instantly, Hermione drew her wand and turned around, stopping somewhere along the line. The troll was still thundering after them, but suddenly faced with a small human who not only stopped running but confidently turned around to face him, it just stood still opening its mouth in a stupid expression.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” Hermione incanted, accompanied by the precise swish and flick she had tried to teach Ronald so many years ago. Or maybe never, who knew. Was the future that would now never take place even real, after all?

The results for the troll though were very real. It only stared with rabid curiosity as its giant club left its equally giant hand. Following that club with its gaze soon proved to be one of the troll’s worse ideas, as the blunt weapon soon crashed down onto its empty face with a hollow ‘thwack’. Accompanied by a mighty splash, the beast fell face down on the cold stone floor, the wooden club giving a comparatively high thump as it fell down next to the troll.

“What’d you do that for?” Hermione heard a voice she was getting annoyed by increasingly. Not to mention sick to her stomach considering how she had felt about him under the influence of that potion; oh, the things that he could have made her do...

“I don’t know if you realized, Weasley,” she now heard the much more pleasant and very comforting voice of her boyfriend, “but there was a troll in the castle, which just happened to be after the three of us. I for one am happy it is out of the game for the time being.”

“But the troll was a test for me, to show I am a real Gryffindor. She just knocked it out so I have to stay with the filthy snakes and we can’t become friends, you know?” the redhead stated with such conviction, Hermione could almost pity him for his obviously poor state of mind.

“Well, if it actually was a test it was a really stupid one. And coming here to prove your nobility is not really noble is it? The noble thing would be to come to help your classmates,” Harry continued, with Ronald getting increasingly worked up.

Before anymore could happen though, the group heard a number of footsteps growing closer and before long almost the whole staff rounded the corner. This was a moment Hermione had been dreading, because she knew either Dumbledore or Snape would try to read Harry and her minds to ostensibly _‘verify’_ their stories.

“What is the meaning of this,” the almost comfortingly harsh voice of Professor McGonagall sounded through the corridor. Again, it was Harry who picked up the conversational ball.

“We were just exploring the castle a little, the others thought it would take my mind off things,” Harry fought a small shudder Hermione was sure was real before he continued, “Anyway, we ran into this thing, so we had to run away. But, look at it, we could not run away forever, so we had an idea…”

“Oh, stop it. It was your idea…” Hermione interrupted her boyfriend, who just picked up where he left off.

“ _I_ had an idea, which Hermione picked up immediately and made happen. I thought of the levitation spell and that giant club. That’s how we came here,” Harry finished his tale, but Hermione knew the Professor would not be letting things stand like that. In her mind, she used her admittedly basic powers of occlumency to partition the memories she wanted to be seen to the forefront, hoping Dumbledore and Snape would only use superficial, wandless and silent legilimency. Not that they had much choice with the amount of witnesses and Harry and Hermione not meeting their eyes.

“That accounts for your, Ms. Granger’s and Mr. Longbottom’s presence. Mr. Weasley, pray tell, why are you here? I distinctly remember seeing you at the feast when the order was given for _all_ students to return to their common rooms,” she demanded and her voice brokered no argument. Not even Snape could have turned this around for his Slytherin, not that it seemed he wanted to.

When nothing came forth from Ron, the most surprising source of information announced itself. “He said this was some kind of test and he had to prove hi _‘nobility and courage’_ by charging down here and taking on the troll,” Neville explained what he had heard.

“Shut up, you squib,” an enraged Ron threw in eloquently. He had turned about as red as Weasleys ever got, which amounted to around the shade of his hair, just minus the orange.

“I was about to ask if that was true but judging from your outburst it seems like it is. I have never seen as idiotic an action as this. Detention with me, one week. Twenty points from Slytherin, and another week for forcing me to take points from my own house. May it cure you from your dunderheadedness,” Snape now made his opinion known in as abrasive and cold a voice as she had ever heard.

“But…” Ron started, though he was quickly cut off.

“If you wish to appeal to your head of house’s decision, you always can. We would just have to contact you parents and then the school board,” McGonagall revealed. Hermione could see that as soon as contacting his parents came up, it was no longer an option.

OOOOOOOO

“Can you believe we witnessed that? Snape taking points from Slytherin, that’s gotta be unheard of,” Neville exclaimed as the trio was once again safely ensconced in the common room.

“I don’t think he really had a problem with Ron seeking glory to be honest,” Harry interjected. Seeing the questioning looks on his friends’ faces, he illustrated his thoughts, “He would not have any problem with that, it’s good publicity. It just irked Snape Weasley ended up trying to save me.”

“Makes sense,” Neville replied. “Anyway, I was serious before. You two are invited for Christmas, if you want. Gran would really like to meet you, Harry.”

“That would be great Neville, if we can swing by Gringotts some time that is. And you have to tell me what a good gift for your Gran would be.”

The wide smile on Neville’s face let Harry know the shy boy would move mountains to have friends visit over Christmas. What were ideas for presents and a trip to Diagon Alley, compared to the amount of work that would take even with magic for help?

OOOOOOOO


	9. A Plan Before Yuletide

Before Harry could so much as realize the time’s new, improved pace, it was the shortly before Christmas. As expected, neither his nor Hermione’s, for wont of a better word, family had had any issues with not having them home over the break. Harry had been instructed in no uncertain terms to cause no havoc and generally not do anything that could lead to a detrimental image of the Dursleys being portrayed anywhere. It seemed the word ‘Manor’ in reference to his friend’s place had been enough to make them forget these were ‘freaks’ _,_ too.

However, there was one thing Harry needed to do before he left the castle for Christmas, and that thing was being started the week before the train would leave. Harry was sitting in the common room, gently lounging around after having finished his homework, when he was ‘surprisingly’ interrupted by Hermione.

“Harry, look what I found,” she greeted him enthusiastically. If nothing else, she seemed to be well cut out as an actress, Harry mused. “Look, it’s a picture of your dad; I found it in the archives. Somebody added a note to it.” Harry was handed the wizarding photograph by his clearly ecstatic girlfriend. He got the feeling she had added to their plan without telling him and he was soon proven right.

“We, the honourable Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs do hereby declare we are finally done with Hogwarts,” he read out loud enough that the Weasley twins could not help but overhear. Their reaction was actually quite entertaining to watch.

With the most important part of the plan done, Harry could look for Hermione’s addition which proved to be found rather easily. As he turned the piece of photography parchment, he was greeted not by the picture he and Hermione had gotten for their plan, but a picture of the three friends plus Wormtail on what was obviously their graduation day, all of them bedecked in ornamental robes and wearing wide grins.

_“So, she actually did go and get something out of the archive,”_ he mused, very touched by Hermione’s gesture. For him, there could never be enough pictures of his parents.

“How in the world did they get that note on the photograph _after_ they graduated?” he asked the equally clueless Hermione, receiving only a shrug of her shoulders as a response.

OOOOOOOO

With the first part of their combined plan to _‘learn’_ about Sirius and getting their hands on the Marauder’s map well under way, it was time to focus on the second part of said plan. Harry, always interested in learning more about his parents, asked for Professor McGonagall to speak to him after class the next day.

“Yes, Mr. Potter. What can I do for you?” she started in her usual brisk and efficient manner.

“Thank you for your time, Professor. I was wondering whether you could tell me a little bit about this picture. Hermione found it in the archives and… I mean, I know next to nothing about my parents and you were their teacher,” he stumbled, and he did not have to play this. He really did hope for some stories, beyond what would be required for his and Hermione’s plan that was.

He could see a number of emotions on his stern Professor’s face. Normally, one would be unable to see them, but Harry had gotten good at reading emotions, especially anger. And anger was definitely part of what he saw here, though he was sure it was not aimed at him.

“Of course, Mr. Potter. Although. I would also very much like to hear why you know next to nothing about your parents, but we shall have time for that later,” she answered in a tone that let Harry know he would not leave the office again before telling her at least part of how growing up with the Dursleys had been. “This is a group of students who called themselves ‘The Marauders’ _._ Members were four Gryffindors, all of them excellent students with an unhealthy penchant for practical jokes that superseded even that of the young Misters Weasley,” McGonagall explained. The look Harry got during that explanation told him fair and square he better not step into their footsteps, or else…

“The members were Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and of course your father, James Charlus Potter. He was actually named after his uncle, you know, Charlus Potter, because your grandfather Laurentius hated his name. But I digress; that group used to do very well in their studies overall, although they could have been better, had they properly applied themselves. Most importantly, they were some of the closest friends I have ever seen here in Hogwarts,” McGonagall continued, and Harry could see the tale was getting to her.

“What happened to them? Why didn’t I grow up with Lupin or Black?” he asked, though he just could not bring himself to ask the same question about Pettigrew.

“Mr. Potter… Harry, do you really wish to hear that story? It is not a good one,” McGonagall inquired, and Harry could see how troubled she was at telling him about the group. Harry gave a weak nod, unable to do much more; the whole thing was emotionally draining for him, too.

“Well, I suppose you have a right to know.” She gave a mighty sigh and started with the story, relaying the whole thing the same way Harry had heard it in third year.

“They only ever found a finger from Pettigrew,” McGonagall finished her intensely emotional retelling. It was moments like these that showed Harry that, despite her misplaced, absolute trust in Albus Dumbledore, the woman cared for her students a lot.

“Black was… is your godfather. But considering… considering what he had done he was never considered as a guardian. Pettigrew is dead and Remus Lupin has a certain… condition which makes it hard for him to get employment in the wizarding world, let alone custody of an infant,” she managed to answer his questions before he could ask them, not that he really needed to.

“Now I believe it is time for you to answer my questions, don’t you think?” And with that she prompted a recital of some of the milder episodes of Harry’s upbringing, leaving her torn between being fuming and guilt-ridden for not insisting on her opinion of the Dursleys all those years ago.

OOOOOOOO

“Harry, do you have a moment for us?” the boy in question was stopped by George Weasley after dinner that very same day. Nowhere let it be said that the twins did not hold themselves to a twisted sense of honour.

“I don’t have a moment currently, George, but could interest you in a second?” he greeted the twins back, just for the fun of keeping them a little off balance.

“That should suffice, follow me,” he was beckoned by Fred, who, as always, seemed somewhat upset that ‘ickle Harrikins’ was able to tell him and his twin apart. No twin-pong for Harry, it seemed. The pair led Harry around a few corners and into a broom-cupboard.

“Was your father really one of the Marauders?” Fred inquired reverently, the hero-worship in his eyes almost rivalling his little sister at her worst.

“Not only my father, my godfather too. Although I’m not sure I’m proud of that particular connection.” At the questioning looks he received for that, he shrugged and continued, “Never mind that. Yes, as far as I know. Why?”

Obviously, this part of the conversation was George’s, who now continued the twins’ side, “Well, some time back we liberated something from Filch’s office…”

“…it was being unjustly held, really. Never did a thing,” Fred interceded, only to be stopped by Harry.

“Please guys, no twin-pong. I already have a headache,” he groaned, much the amusement of the Weasley tricksters.

“Sorry,” Fred excused himself, not looking at all the part.

“Anyway, we liberated this sacred artefact of prankdom, this genius instrument of anarchy. It’s called the Marauder’s map, your father co-created it, and we believe you should have it,” George finished his part while Fred was fishing out the old sheet of parchment from his pocket.

“It is one of our most prized possessions,” Fred picked up the conversation where his brother left off. “But it is yours by right, so let me just show you how to use it. We know all the secret passages by heart anyway.”

Both twins gave him almost identical grins and launched into their explanation.

OOOOOOOO

With their plans for before the holidays done, they did not really want to rescue the stone before they had access to the cloak of invisibility and had checked Harry for any tracking charms, extensively so, Harry and Hermione took to spending more time with those year-mates they had not spent much time with the last time around.

Some of the people that had been invited to Hermione’s party were becoming permanent fixtures of their circle of friends, especially Susan, Daphne and Tracey. Especially the two Slytherins were happy for any excuse to get out from under the oppressing atmosphere of their common room, with Weasley and Malfoy both currently fighting for biggest idiot of the year, not that they saw it that way. Weasley was only fighting for his ‘rightful place in the house of the brave’ continually blaming Hermione ‘The Bookworm’ Granger for ruining his chance with the troll, while Draco continued to think, just because his last name was Malfoy, anyone should lick his boots.

Having Susan with them also meant they were often accompanied by Hannah Abbott, but the others did not mind. She was definitely less academic than Hermione, and surprisingly Harry since his return, but just like Susan and in typical Hufflepuff fashion she was very down-to-earth and loyal to a fault. Still, Harry could not help but get the feeling that being exposed to the ideals of the other houses was a good thing for each and every one of them; that included him and Hermione.

The time not spent with friends, what little homework was left and working on their enchanted glasses was spent making further plans and studying the map, the latter two rather extensively. They could see Fluffy was exactly where he should be, as was Wormtail. Just as expected, Quirrell was running around with his point overlapped by Tom Marvolo Riddle, while Dumbledore was doing a lot of pacing around in his office these days; they could only assume it was because of some plan of his going awry. Maybe it was Harry not befriending Weasley, Harry leaving Hogwarts for Christmas or Harry not investigating the stone in any way. Or maybe it was something else entirely; as long as him being nervous kept the old man from interfering with Harry’s life, they had no problem with it.

The last, and arguably one of the most important things they were doing, was looking for a very particular piece of information. It was already the evening before the train was scheduled to leave before Hermione finally found that very piece of information, they had been looking for the most.

“Harry, look at this,” she shouted enthusiastically and soon came running from in-between two lines of bookshelves the Room of Requirement had made for them, a dusty and very, _very_ old book in her hands.

“I think I have it,” she exclaimed and shoved the ancient tome under Harry’s nose. Her exuberance when knowledge was concerned always managed to amaze Harry.

“ _’On the Moste Obscure Nature of Tracking Charms and Enchantments’_ ,” Harry read the title out loud. This particular doorstopper was certainly old enough to contain the kind of information they were looking for; it certainly looked the way it should if it was indeed from a time before the Ministry had gotten as heavy-handed as they were these days.

“Look at chapter XIV _‘Practical Application’_ , the section for magic-sensing wards and charms,” he was instructed by his girlfriend, an instruction he followed promptly. Without Weasley around to distract him and make him feel bad about his academic prowess he may have been an avid learner, but in the pursuit of knowledge, no one was better or more determined than his Hermione.

“The application of magic-sensing wards on a person, due to the very nature of them having to be tied to that person’s own magic reserves, lest they cease functioning due to a loss of energy, are only possible with the consent of the person receiving them. Unlike other wards, which are meant to be stationary, these are meant to wander with the person being monitored. The easiest way to achieve this is to bind the ward to a magical object intrinsically linked to one’s magical power, without which no magic can generally be performed. I am speaking, of course, of a young magical’s wand,” he read out. “But I never gave consent to being spied on,” he proclaimed, mightily annoyed by this new revelation.

“Oh, come on. You are not old enough to consent to anything like that, at least this body isn’t. Your guardian agrees to it, probably something in the small print of Ollivander’s contracts. And before you say there was no contract signed, of course not. It would be a magical contract, like the Goblet of Fire, the actions being performed enough to satisfy the contract. You bought the wand, or rather your guardians bought it for you therefore there is consent. That must be the reason the trace vanishes when you turn seventeen,” Hermione thought out loud. It was a rather refined thought, or so Harry thought.

“So, what do we do? Sounds like we need other wands, wands Ollivander did not make,” he proposed to a nod from his blushing girlfriend. With her next sentence, the reason for her blush became obvious.

“Oh, I can’t believe I’m proposing this, but I think we might have to go into Knockturn Alley…”

OOOOOOOO

After a last breakfast in Hogwarts the merry group of students, consisting of Daphne, Tracey, Neville, Hermione and Harry was soon underway to Hogsmeade. Hannah had to stay at the castle, her family being away for a family emergency, and Susan would not just leave her friend alone.

_“They are Hufflepuffs, after all,”_ Harry thought half-jokingly. It was definitely one of the nicer stereotypes attributed to the Badgers.

The trip to London was spent in companionable merriment and with many promises for Christmas presents to be received by the various members of the group. Between two lively games of exploding snap, which Hermione insisted on staying away from after she had lost a fair amount of hair, instead reading some old book she had dug up in the library, they were interrupted by their least-favourite redhead. It seemed as if taking him to Rumania to see Charlie was not such a problem, now that Harry was not staying a Hogwarts, too.

“Hi Harry,” he greeted the boy jovially completely ignoring the other occupants of the cabin. “Don’t be surprised if you get a present from my family. I told them you did not expect any, so my mom is planning to send you something…”

Here he was interrupted by a slightly irate Harry Potter. “Why ever would you think I would not get any presents? I have a group of great friends, a group I don’t consider you to be a part of.”

“What friends?” The Weasley boy asked, looking honestly surprised. “I only see two dirty snakes, a squib and an annoying know-it-all. Those two Puffs don’t even count,” he retorted, his face slowly growing red in the tell-tale signs of a Weasley temper-tantrum. Not in any way interested in dealing with this particular unpleasantness, Harry drew his wand and turned it on Ron.

“Depulso, Colloportus,” he intoned clearly, but without much force. The idiot might be a nuisance, and Harry a bit ashamed for his former association with the other boy, but he constantly reminded himself that Ronald was also nothing more than that; especially not this twelve-year-old version of him. So, one mild banishing and a locking charm later, they were free to again indulge in their chosen activity, which soon turned to swapping Christmas stories from their families. Harry and Hermione both held back at that topic. It would not do to bum anyone out just before the holidays, after all.

OOOOOOOO


	10. A History Lesson for Christmas

The Hogwarts express reached Kings Cross later than usual that day, due to the heavy snow blanketing huge amounts of Scotland with its beautiful, but as far as trains were concerned, detrimental whiteness.

“Harry, Hermione, please don’t take it personally,” Daphne implored the two of them, her eyes pleading with them not to blame her for her family’s… inadequacies.

“Of course not,” Hermione answered the clearly distraught girl. “It’s just sad you can’t introduce your friends to your parents because they believe in that nonsense,” she replied sadly.

“They don’t, not really. It will just take a little time and explaining for them to accept it. No one ever thought it possible for two Slytherins to become friends with a bunch of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, especially if two of these people were Harry Potter and a muggleborn,” Tracey butted in as Daphne seemed unable to continue at the moment. “They will approve, though. Especially of Neville, Susan and Harry.” A smirk now gracing her features, she continued a little impishly, “All powerful, old families, and Amelia Bones is head of DMLE, a good spot to be in to become the next Minister. Not that that’s the reason we’re your friends.” The last remark was added with fearful shock on the dark-haired witch’s face, obviously realizing how what she had just said could be interpreted.

“And nobody here thought so. If it gets your parents off our case, who are we to complain about it,” Harry interceded the guilt-fuelled rant Hermione had seen coming.

_“Very thoughtful of him,”_ she mused proudly, lovingly.

As the doors opened, Tracey and Daphne quickly left the train to meet up with their respective families, Daphne being enthusiastically greeted by her sister Astoria. Harry and Hermione were led by Neville to the old, stern-looking woman they remembered from the last timeline. She was just as imposing as she remembered, and the attire that had seemed so laughable on Neville’s boggart just seemed frightening on her. Even the stuffed vulture on her hat.

“Gran, I would like you to meet my friends, Hermione Jean Granger and Harry James Potter, Heir to the Potter family. Harry, Hermione, my grandmother Augusta, Viscountess Longbottom,” he introduced everyone, receiving a strange look from both Hermione and her boyfriend for the somewhat weird introduction.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, although I gather from your expressions you have not been properly schooled in etiquette. Not surprising for a muggleborn, but downright neglectful for a future duke,” the stern woman stated in her no-nonsense voice. Strangely, her comment about muggleborns did not irk Hermione, at least not much, as it was delivered so matter-of-factly, without even the barest hint of contempt. She knew muggles did not care much for some of the older customs of their own world, how could muggleborn be expected to know about those of the wizarding world if no one ever deemed it necessary to tell them? “If you are in agreement, we shall rectify that tremendous oversight over the holidays. Merlin knows Neville could use a refresher.”

Behind his grandmother, Neville was giving his friends thumbs-up that were coupled with a most disconcerting smile.

OOOOOOOO

They were chauffeured to Longbottom Manor, the family’s ancestral home in Suffolk, by an excitable young house elf named Pappy and promptly given the tour by Neville.

The manor was done in the style of the _really_ old, fortified homes of the landed gentry, complete with a mote, drawbridge and even a small wall. Most of the other former defensive elements had been forced to cede their places to amenities though, including a ballroom adjacent to the large hall in which the lord of the manor had held court in days yore. Furthermore, there were several guest rooms, a master suite, a family wing and the old barracks now housed a small duelling area, with a potion laboratory added in the dungeons under it.

Harry immediately liked the place, especially the medieval feel of the moat and drawbridge; he said he could almost see people with bow and arrow, or shield and sword in hand, bravely fighting off a band of roving bandits. Hermione was more interested in taking a good long look into the library, time permitting, but she would not be upset either way, because she had the feeling they would be spending a lot of time here.

After dinner, again served by Pappy, who was very excited to have people there to dote upon, Augusta, as she bid them to call her, started off with ‘rectifying some oversights”, as she called it.

“It seems you are both woefully uneducated in wizarding lore and customs. I shall try to give you the basics,” the old lady started, only to be interrupted by ruffling. Hermione returned to the table, feeling her face blush as she put down ink, parchment and quill. A satisfied nod from Augusta told her she was in no trouble. “British wizarding society is old, very old. We don’t know where the roots lie, but our earliest written accounts are from the early 10th century, no doubt because somewhere around that time Hogwarts started hoarding knowledge, protecting it from the occasional bout of book burnings. Back in that time, before the witch hunts hit Britain and even earlier, before Christianization, having magic was often a way to great power. Unfortunately with great power often comes envy, and this is what led to the founding of Hogwarts. It was a way for magical children to be protected from the claws of the greedy, or sometimes downright abusive. When the whole of England became Christian, the situation did not exactly get better for young witches and wizards, especially the muggleborn. So, back in 1066, when William the Conqueror planned to invade Britain, the most powerful and influential of the magic families struck a deal with who they thought would be the future king of England.”

Here, Augusta made a little pause, silence filling the room aside from Hermione’s quill scratching on the parchment.

“That deal proposed that the old and powerful wizarding families would keep all their hereditary titles and be granted self-governance. In return, they promised to fight the battlemages the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada brought with him on his own attempted conquest of the isle. They did just that, I don’t want to bore you with details…” Hermione felt a sting of annoyance at this, “…, and were granted what they had been promised. They just took the name of the Anglo-Saxon king’s advisory body, the Witenagemot, and turned it into their own. Today, it is the Wizengamot,” she finished her tale, which was only good, because it finally allowed Hermione to ask questions.

“Did I understand this correctly, the old wizards were living together with muggles, were even granted sovereignty by a muggle ruler and actively trying to integrate muggleborns into their society? What happened to that?” she asked, astonished how the pureblood doctrine could rise from this.

“Well, I assume you listened carefully while writing down notes. I’d ask you to think about why the old wizarding families would be interested to ingratiate themselves with the muggleborn of that time instead of just shunning them, like they do today. Believe me, even back then they distrusted first generation magicals,” she countered the question with another question. Hermione munched it through her head, looking at it from all possible sites, until finally the proverbial light bulb went off. The fact that Harry’s light bulb had obviously gone off earlier than hers surprised her just a little.

“Because a muggleborn was a threat to the power these people held as wizards. They were the way for the people who desired their power and wealth to get both, but if they managed to bind them to their houses, either through oath, friendship or marriage, it actually widened their powerbase,” she concluded, receiving a happy nod in return.

“Exactly. As for their sovereignty being gifted by a muggle king, the purebloods simply chose to conveniently forget it. Common knowledge is an interesting thing, isn’t it?”

OOOOOOOO

Their lesson concluded, the three children, for lack of a better word one could apply to Harry and Hermione, were sent to bed. The next day would be very taxing with an appointment at Gringotts topped off by Christmas shopping. Also, Hermione and Harry still had to find a way to break away from the other two and get wands not bearing the trace, seeing as they could not rescind their guardian’s permission before they were adults in this timeline.

Harry was shown into one of the guest bedrooms by Pappy, who then promptly left to show Hermione into the one across the hall. His room, or rather rooms, were very nice, decorated in soft, earthy colours, the ensuite bathroom tiled in crisp white. Seeing as he was completely knackered from the day, the only things Harry did before collapsing into bed was brush his teeth (Hermione would get upset with him otherwise) and slip on his pyjamas.

However, now that he was actually lying comfortably, he just could not get his thoughts to quiet down sufficiently to let him sleep. He was having doubts and concerns, and like for so many people, they were never stronger than the moment he tried to go to sleep. Harry was feeling immensely guilty for not getting his godfather out of Azkaban instantly; even though he knew he had no way to do so. He was feeling guilty for lying to his friends about who, or rather how old he really was. He knew perfectly well he was manipulating a whole lot of people; he was doing the same thing Dumbledore had been doing in the old timeline and had been trying to do again.

Not that Harry really blamed the old man, although he thought it would be easy to. He was just getting very, _very_ old, and that brought with it making more and more mistakes as time progresses. The only thing he really faulted Dumbledore for was never taking the time to build a worthy successor. And maybe not realizing the dangers of Tom Riddle when there had still been time. And for not doing anything about the Horcruxes as soon as he had only an inkling of an idea…

_“Okay, maybe I do blame him for a lot of things. But his motivations are pure, and although his methods are deplorable, no one would fault him if it was working,”_ he mused. That musing was cut short by the sound of the door opening.

“Can’t sleep either?” he heard Hermione’s voice from the shadow that entered his bedroom.

“No. Hermione what are you…” he started as he felt her crawling into bed with him. He stiffened immediately; this was the first contact like this since…

“Harry, what is it?” he could hear the hurt in her voice, hurt at him pulling away from a cuddle it seemed she needed desperately. Hermione hurt was something that would always get Harry out of his stupor.

“Got nothing to do with you, sweetie. It’s just... you know the last time I was like this with somebody…” Harry shrugged in the dark, knowing Hermione would be unable to see it. The gesture was more for him than for her anyway.

“Oh,” she moaned dejectedly. “I can go if you want…”

“No, please stay. And you were right, I can’t sleep. Just thinking about all the things we’re doing, are planning to do. Like, should we have freed Sirius already, or aren’t we being just as manipulative as Dumbledore?” Voicing some of his concerns to the one person who had even a chance at understanding felt good, actually.

This time, when Hermione cuddled into him, he did not pull back. Instead, he embraced her in a tight hug he knew they both yearned for, as complicated as the feelings it evoked in him were.

OOOOOOOO

It had been one of the best nights of sleep in Harry’s memory, up until the alarm clock Hermione, ever sensible, had brought with her had gone off at 5:30.

5:30 in the morning.

“What is that?” a severely sleep-ruffled and annoyed Harry lifted his head from behind Hermione’s where he had been snuggling into the locks of her bushy hair. He saw the old mechanical clock ringing away on the nightstand and immediately deactivated it. It would not do to awake the entire house, after all.

“Hermione, wake up.” He shook his girlfriend gently, but her only reaction was to turn around and face him directly, resting her head on his chest.

“Hermione, as much as I enjoy this, I think you set that alarm for a reason, time to wake up,” he insisted more forcefully, prompting her to open an eye and peer at him.

“Don’t wanna, it’s way too comfy here. You make an excellent pillow,” she yawned, quickly followed by intensifying her cuddling of him.

He finally managed to get Hermione, who as it turned out had set the alarm to be safely tucked into her own bed when everybody else awoke, out of her sleepy state, which he was rather sorry for, for she was oh-so cute like this, and into her own bed.

They agreed to ‘wake up’ at half past six and meet in the sitting room for a little bit of planning.

OOOOOOOO

At the appointed time, Hermione slowly walked towards their meeting point. She was rather flustered, as she was beginning to get worried Harry might be angry with her for just showing up in his room the night before. It had certainly hurt to feel him pull away from the cuddle she had needed so desperately, but she understood why. If even something as innocent and beautiful as a loving cuddle was marred with bad memories, that was even more reason to condemn such a thing as rape potions.

When she entered the room, most of her fears were swept away by Harry smiling at her, broadly so. However, he also looked quite apologetic.

“Hermione, I’m so sorry I pulled away from you yesterday, it was…” he started, but this time Hermione would not have his self-deprecation.

“No, Harry. You have nothing to be sorry for, the only one who has is me, I should not have showed up like this. It’s just… I remembered some things from the old timeline and I really needed some warmth. Sorry for that,” she rushed out, afraid that she might lose the courage she had been gathering.

Harry looked at her long and carefully. Finally, he stated with conviction, “Hermione, never apologise for needing a cuddle. Merlin knows we’ve seen enough to warrant that from time to time.”

Despite their plans saying otherwise, not a lot of planning was done before the rest of the house awoke.

OOOOOOOO


	11. In the Depths of London

Chief Ironclaw was standing at the full height window of his office, gazing down at the masses of people down in the alley. It was an important day for both his nation and the bank, because today they had the ability to get to Harry Potter, alone and without the old fool Dumbledore meddling.

The headmaster had never particularly irked the goblins before, but he was getting up there in years and in humans that generally meant clinging to the status quo, almost desperately convinced that any change had to be a bad thing. As far as Ironclaw was concerned though, the status quo was what was undeniably bad. In times long past he had taken an oath, the oath of a warrior to his family and his clan, that he would see his children’s children using wands. Now his oldest was expecting and it was time to hurry up.

The Potter boy might just be the way to achieve his goal and die in peace, his honour still intact.

OOOOOOOO

The Gringotts building was as imposing as ever, its large looming whiteness ruling over Diagon Alley. It was a little ironic that the creatures many wizards did not even think worth noticing would have the most imposing building of the whole centre of wizarding Britain, Harry mused amusedly.

Somehow, he and Hermione had managed to get Augusta off their case and be left alone for most of the morning, including their trip to Gringotts. Considering they did not really know what to expect from this particular visit and would probably have to talk about things they rather should not with a large amount of people, that was definitely a good thing.

_“At least we know now where Neville’s shyness comes from, his Gran completely coddles him,”_ Harry determined.

The young couple entered the bank building and waited in line in front of one of the tellers. At their turn they respectfully waited (just as Hermione had been taught to do with bank clerks) until said goblin lifted his head from his parchment, where he was doing some bored doodling, drawing different sorts of very effective looking weapons.

“Yes, your business with Gringotts bank?” the clerk barked out.

“Hello, my name is Harry Potter, I have an appointment,” Harry introduced himself, trying hard to stay friendly despite the obvious surliness of his counterpart. He would be surly, too, if all he heard all day would be barked demands to be shown to one’s vaults.

“Of course, Mr. Potter,” came the answer, now in a surprisingly friendly tone that was even more disconcerting than the surliness before. The goblin pressed a button next to his parchment and continued in his false friendly voice, “Someone will be by shortly. Next!”

The last bit was barked again, and Harry and Hermione were quickly replaced by a rather irate middle-aged wizard, who seemed quite put out he had had to wait and promptly took it out on the goblin teller.

“My father is ready to see you now,” they were soon approached by another goblin, this one’s friendliness much less played and therefore much more comfortable. “My name is Sableclaw, if you would please follow me.”

And this they did. Through hallways and staircases they went, with the stately marble soon being replaced by cold stone walls that looked like they were hewn directly out of the bone of the earth. The young couple shared an astonished look, as they could not remember ever having been inside of this part of Gringotts, when their guide suddenly turned and they stood in front of a huge (for goblin standards) door, finely crafted from a silvery metal and embossed with scenes of glorious combat.

_“At least glorious for a race of warriors,”_ it shot through Harry’s head.

Sableclaw stepped up to the door in what seemed an almost ritualistic fashion, knocked three times and immediately left without one more word, eliciting more looks of astonishment from Harry and Hermione. There was not much time to be astonished, though, because soon the corridor was echoing with a deep and very old voice.

“Enter!”

The young couple stepped forward and as if automatically (magic!) the door opened on their approach, showing them into a surprisingly comfortable chamber. The walls were still rough-hewn and lighting was achieved with flickering torches, but there was a large carpet and a number of filled book cases, a huge desk and, oddly enough, a globe.

“Take a seat,” they were instructed by the same voice they had heard outside the door. Now they could see it was coming from an extremely old goblin sitting behind the desk, wearing a surprisingly friendly smile.

“My apologies for the way our teller acted Mr. Potter, Ms Granger. Dealing with less than friendly customers,” this part was sneered, “day in day out can really sour one’s mood. The name is chief Ironclaw, but you may abate with the formalities. Ironclaw shall suffice,” the old goblin, Ironclaw, introduced himself.

“Thank you Ironclaw, then it is Hermione and Harry,” he heard his girlfriend say while he was still taking in the impressive office.

“Now to business. You have made an appointment, let us hear what you were concerned about, then Gringotts has a proposition for you,” Ironclaw said, now in such a brisk, business-like manner so unlike his former friendliness the change was startling.

“Yes, thank you,” Harry answered. “I have gotten an… anonymous tip I should see Gringotts, preferably alone. The last time I was here it was with Mr. Hagrid, so some business might have been left open. And don’t mind Hermione being here, whatever you tell me, I’d tell her later anyway,” he finished with a slight chuckle, shocked at the minimal upturn in the lips of the goblin opposite him.

“Then, Harry, I have to say that anonymous source was not wrong. It is good you came when you did, therefore averting more damage. There has been some illicit activity with the Potter accounts, activity we were unable to investigate up until now. With your say-so, we could find out.” This time there was no mistaking it: Ironclaw was smiling, but it was a smile so unlike a human one it might have been taken as almost a gesture of threat.

“Of course, but before that: Potter accounts?” Harry inquired. He had never even heard of any Potter accounts before this, neither in this nor in the old timeline.

“Oh yes, the Potters are an old line of nobility, both in the muggle and in the magical world, although I think they were forgotten by the British peerage, long thought extinct. As soon as you claim your inheritance, you are actually a Duke,” Ironclaw explained.

“And I thought they were joking,” Harry noted, thinking of Neville and his Gran on the previous evening. “Yes, please take a look into that illicit activity. One question, if I may?”

“Certainly,” Ironclaw allowed, magnanimously nodding.

“Why did no one ever tell me? Even an owl would have been helpful,” Harry demanded, trying hard not to sound to put out.

“Ah, I see you are not that immersed in goblin/ministry treaties. Telling you about wizarding politics would be us actively interfering, something we are contractually banned from doing. If you ask, however, we’re simply _‘assisting a value client’_.” This time it was unmistakable: A small chuckle left the old goblin’s mouth, quite disconcerting to human ears.

“Something to know about the old families, since you asked so nicely,” the feral grin was back, “the family heads of the old lines usually had last wills, especially in more uncertain times…”

“Did the Potters have a testament?” Hermione asked, obviously no longer content letting just Harry talk.

“I am terribly sorry, Hermione, but I am unable to tell _you_ that,” Ironclaw responded, with a weighty look towards Harry.

_“I think I am finally getting what is really being played here,”_ Harry mused before he asked the same question his girlfriend had before him.

“Certainly Harry, we will have a reading of the will organized for you shortly, seeing as you are one of the beneficiaries,” he got for a reply.

OOOOOOOO

Barely half an hour, and some much-needed refreshments for both goblin and humans later, another goblin carrying a huge ledger and a sealed roll of parchment entered the room through a door so seamlessly integrated into the wall Harry had not seen it before. The goblins really were quite the craftsmen, he determined.

“Hello, I am Blacktooth from the goblin archives; I am here to read a will. Is that correct?” The much younger goblin asked.

“Correct, Blacktooth,” Harry answered the inquiry.

“And everybody here is either a beneficiary of here by the invitation of one?” the archivist clarified, dubiously looking at Hermione

“Yes, Hermione and Ironclaw should hear this too,” he responded to the second inquiry. He could feel Hermione fidgeting beside him and was expecting her to say something any time now.

“Are you sure, Harry? I can wait outside, really, this is your parents’ will, after all…” she reminded him timidly, not that he needed reminding of that.

“Yes Hermione, I want you here with me. This might be hard to hear, so I’d rather have you right by my side. Plus, I would just tell you later anyway,” he tried to lift the suddenly sombre mood that had permeated the room. “Ironclaw, I assume everything you see in this room stays here, same with you Blacktooth?” He received two almost offended nods in return.

“As honour dictates,” Ironclaw affirmed what Harry already assumed.

“Then read it.”

Blacktooth put down the huge ledger, keeping in his hands the scroll he now proceeded to unseal with a silver dagger he had drawn from somewhere within his robes. He unrolled the old parchment and started reading.

_“Last Will and Testament of James Charlus Potter and Lily Jessica Potter neè Evans, Duke and Duchess of Potter, Earl and Countess of Hereford, Viscount and Viscountess of Welles:_

_We, being of sound mind and body, free from magical or mundane influences hereby bequeath the following:_

_In the event of the death of either one of us, to the surviving spouse we leave our complete assets, aside from what is required by law to go to third parties._

_In the event of both our deaths, we leave the following:_

_To Harry James Potter, on the day of the reading of this will, access to the family vaults, excluding the monetary assets, should he not be of age at that point. In that case, his trust vault is to be replenished to 10000G annually._

_Furthermore, as sole heir he is to receive the headship of the Potter family, with all rights, privileges and duties. Should he not be of age at the reading of this will, he is to appoint a proxy for the seat on the Wizengamot._

_To Remus John Lupin the amount of 100000G and the house we own in Norfolk. Should he prove to be unable to be found, said property has a house elf who should be able to do so instantly. In case his godfather is unable to do so, Remus Lupin is to raise our son in our stead._

_To Sirius Orion Black we leave the same amount, along with the family property on Samson, Isles of Scilly. We know he will be reluctant to accept, but he was cast out by his family and needs a place to stay. Furthermore, we task him, as our son’s godfather, with raising Harry in our absence._

_To Peter Pettigrew, our secret keeper we leave our everlasting gratitude for agreeing to keep our location safe inside his mind, as well as 100000G and the everlasting right to use the Potter vacation homes._

_Should none of the aforementioned guardians be available our son’s welfare shall be entrusted to a loving muggle family to be told of his heritage on his sixth birthday. The family shall receive a yearly stipend of 10000 Pounds for his care._

_This we declare to be our last will and testament, all earlier wills null and void._

Here are the signatures of both testators and the executor, one Albus Dumbledore, dated August 7th 1980,” Blacktooth finished the reading, leaving Harry to ponder the ramifications of the document. One thing was clear though; there was no way he would let Wormtail get any of the inheritance.

“Is there any way in which I can contest part of this?” he asked, looking first at Ironclaw and then Blacktooth.

“May I inquire what exactly you wish to contest?” Ironclaw queried with a knowing glint in his eyes. Again, he seemed to be bound by non-interference until asked for help, it seemed.

“First, as my parents are dead and from what I heard were betrayed by their secret keeper, I would like to contest Pettigrew’s inheritance,” he answered, already fearing he would not like the answer.

“There is no way to do that. As Pettigrew was still alive when your parents died and has since been declared dead, the bequest would go to his closest living relative, meaning his mother,” Ironclaw said with an apologetic look. “I really am sorry; there is little we goblins detest more than a traitor.”

“I have reason to believe Pettigrew is still alive,” Harry stated, to shocked intakes of breath from the two goblins. “Is there a way to hold up that bequest so it will go to him and I can get it back as--- I don’t know, restitution in a court of law maybe?”

“We can do that, inventing problems in bureaucratic procedure is one of our specialties,” came the answer from Blacktooth, who was now wearing the same feral grin his chief had been earlier.

“Okay, then about my oh-so loving family, I hope they did not receive that stipend, because they never took care of me, I was nothing more than their slave, sometimes punching bag,” he continued. It seemed Hermione could no longer hold onto herself, she moved from the seat next to him to the seat on him, circling her arms around her boyfriend and cuddling her bushy head into the crook of his neck. It seemed to be something they both needed at that moment.

“They did receive a stipend for your care, but it is more than double the amount specified in the will, curtesy of the executor. The difference between what was given and what was specified Mr. Dumbledore is liable for, the rest you can again reclaim in a court of law, although this one should be easier than Pettigrew,” his newest question was answered by Ironclaw.

This went on for quite some time before their meeting was finally adjourned. Adjourned, not finished as Ironclaw and Blacktooth both repeatedly clarified. They still had more things to talk about.

OOOOOOOO

“Really, Harry, do we have to?” Hermione moaned as she was practically dragged out of Gringotts by her boyfriend. She could understand his enthusiasm about shopping, now that he had the money to do so and the prospect of returning to the Dursleys and having to explain the new clothes was practically zero. That she understood it did not mean she had to share his enthusiasm.

“But I hate shopping,” she complained. It was selfish, she knew, but there were actually few things she hated more than shopping, with Ronald Weasley busily rising to the top of them, right along the Malfoys.

“We won’t be long, but you know if we want to be taken seriously, we will have to look the part. And it’s not unlikely there will be several trials in our future,” Harry repeated the reasoning she herself had made earlier. That was simply unacceptable.

“Stop turning my own logic around on me,” she responded with a light chuckle to let him know she was not cross with him but appreciated it. No, definitely not cross.

They decided to forgo ‘Madam Malkin’s’ in favour of a little shop called ‘Twilfitt and Tattings’. Although Harry said he could remember the Malfoys frequenting the shop, the more upscale feel of the place fitted what they wanted to achieve with these clothes, so they did not take a big issue with some of the shadier clientele.

A significant number of Galleons later, Harry and Hermione were both decked out in new robes, with more shrunk down in their pockets. Now it was time for something Hermione was both dreading and looking forward to; it was time for their trip into Knockturn Alley.

The place was as eerie as she remembered, with dark buildings, dingy corners and shady individuals hiding around in the buildings’ shadows. However, now that she cast a closer look at some of the stores, she was surprised how normal some of them looked. There even was what looked like a wizarding sex-shop and a brothel somewhere down a side-street.

However, this was not what they were here for, as she reminded her madly blushing boyfriend after having caught him staring a little.

“I think that’s the place,” Harry pointed towards the other side of the alley from where she had been looking at. It was a small shop called ‘Woodworm Turner and Carpenter’. They entered the establishment and were greeted by a jovial, middle-aged, slightly balding man.

“Hello, how may I help you two? You got lost?” he asked them in friendly way, so unlike Ollivander’s overt creepiness it was almost disconcerting.

“Hello. Thank you, let’s leave our names out of this, if you don’t mind,” Hermione greeted back. “We would like to employ your talents as a wood turner for some special appliances,” she uttered the special pass-phrase she had learned from Daphne.

“Oho, and how many of these special appliances would you like?” the now happily smiling proprietor inquired of her.

“Four, two for each of us,” Harry stated their demand, only for them to receive another, even wider smile.

“In that case, I will make you a good price. Been awhile since I had this large a demand. Tell you what, I will throw in some wand holsters for the both of you and while you wait, you can pick anything up to… say 30 Galleons from my shop. One is on the house,” he offered, the manic grin becoming even wider. It seemed he either loved his profession very much or he would make a lot of money from this.

“You seem to very much enjoy being a wand-maker. Or what is it you services are going to cost us?” Harry aired her exact thoughts from earlier.

“Oh, but I’m no wand-maker. By ministerial decree, there is only one wand-maker in Diagon Alley, which is of course the esteemed Mr. Ollivander. Probably because he allows these wretched tracking charms be placed on his creations,” the not-a-wand-maker huffed with annoyance. It seemed the _‘esteem‘_ with which he held Ollivander was rather limited. “I am merely a simple carpenter and wood turner, who happens to know quite a bit about wand lore. And it will be 500 Galleons, a bargain really.”

“Of course you are. I assume we won’t be paying for wands then, but for carpentry and/or wood turning services?” Harry queried. From his smile Hermione knew he was starting to enjoy this game of double meanings and secret passphrases.

“Right you are. Now let us find out what sort of wood and core would be suitable for your… let’s say ornamental potion spatulas.” With that he led the couple into the back room of his shop, stopping in front of a massive assortment of wooden disks mounted on the wall.

“These are the woods I employ in my craft. You will go over there and touch each and every sample; I will note down with which you feel most connected. Now, off you go,” he instructed them.

Hermione stepped forward, touching each and every sample, but only two felt in any way good, a little like the moment she had taken her won wand in hand the first time. One of the woods she recognized as the one her own wand was made of, vine, the other was a handsome, middle brown wood with some reddish hue.

The carpenter gave her an approving nod, but as she gazed at him questioningly, he shook his head. “I can’t tell you the wood type until you’ve tested the cores. I don’t want to influence you in any way,” he answered her unasked question, satisfying her curiosity. For the moment at least.

Now it was Harry’s turn and Hermione could immediately see how the craftsman had been able to tell which woods she had taken to; three times she could see Harry looking completely awed, two bright and one middle brown sample.

The same process was repeated with wand cores, only this time they had been blindfolded and handed the samples by the proprietor. It seemed he really wanted to rule out any discrepancies in their choices.

“Now I will just need the length of… spatula you use normally so using you new ones will not cause much need for getting used to them,” he explained, after which they both gave their wand measurements and retreated to the shop to let the man work.

“Can you believe the guy?” Harry asked her with a chuckle. “Ornamental potion spatulas, as if I could use wood to work on potions. It would disintegrate immediately.”

“I know, that was quite funny. I think he only has to keep his services quite a bit. I bet many purebloods have enjoyed his carpentry too, that’s why he is still able to work like this. They keep this shop an open secret, so they will have another advantage over the less informed members of society, namely muggleborns,” Hermione guessed. It was another thing with potential to make her angry about the state of the wizarding world.

“I know how you feel. Let’s not dwell on it, we have a shop to explore,” Harry proposed with a wide grin. They would need an excuse for their long absence, what better way to do that than something close to the truth? They had simply gotten lost, run into this little shop and asked for the way, buying a Christmas present at this opportunity.

OOOOOOOO

It was about an hour later, they had indeed found a present for Augusta by now, that Woodworm came out of the backroom holding two long boxes and four weird-looking leather thingies.

“I am done. I see you have found something you wish to add to our little deal,” he announced, giving the raven statue Hermione was holding a long look. “Just so you know, that is a special little statue. It will never burn, for one thing. And in the bottom, there is a small space with an undetectable extension charm for storing valuables.”

“Now, before we get to your spatulas, I have these special spatula holders for you. They come in three configurations, leg, arm and waist; the last one goes on your belt. You can change them by tapping them with your wand and saying the configuration you need at the moment. Very much dependant on whether you want your appliances to be seen,” he explained the weird leather thingies. “For now I would suggest arms, as you are wearing robes they should be invisible under that.”

“Thank you very much. Is there a way to buy more of these later? I would like one for a friend of mine, and another one for my old spatula as well,” Harry asked, still very much into the coded talking. It was like he was in an espionage film.

“Certainly, that is 10 Galleons apiece. For you, too little Miss?” he inquired, to which she nodded.

“One for me, too,” she answered in the affirmative.

“Now for your spatulas: You, little Miss have vine and walnut wood with dragon heartstring and thunderbird tail feather for a core. The tail feather should balance out the unsavoury characteristic of disloyalty often shown by dragon heartstring. Should be well suited for transfiguration… potions.”

“Thank you very much,” Hermione said, took the box and opened it to look at her new wands; beautiful patterns of intertwining reddish and brown wood with an elegantly carved handle, at the bottom of which was a small gem that looked like quartz.

“For you, Mister, I have ash, aspen and elder. Rather suited for martial magic, if I may say so, but you also have my condolences for the elder wood.” Upon the questioning gaze from Harry, who did not really catch the meaning of this, he elaborated, “No one who has ever had an elder wood spatula has had an easy life. Your cores are thestral tail hair and a sliver of the horn of a horned serpent. It was not exactly easy to combine these, but I managed.”

He gave Harry a box that looked exactly like the one Hermione had received earlier. He opened it, to find two long, rather bright wands, but instead of the finely crafted, smooth handle of his girlfriend’s new spatulas, his had a handle in the form of a stylized hourglass. Not to the extreme that it would be uncomfortable, but enough to be clearly distinguishable. The gem on the bottom was the same, though.

Harry took on of the wands in hand and immediately a warm feeling filled him up. The one he had experienced when he had gotten his holly wand at Ollivander’s could not hope to compare to this. Something else to think about.

“If you ever intend to use these new appliances and not your old one, you can change their appearance by tapping the gem at the bottom with your old… spatula. Just be aware the enchantment has to be repowered daily. That will be 530 Galleons,” he surprised them.

The sudden change of direction caught the young couple on the wrong foot; nevertheless they paid quickly and left the shop, now outfitted with new, untraceable wands and a whole lot more to think about.

OOOOOOOO


	12. Christmas, Busiest Time of the Year

Christmas morning came unto Harry in the now familiar form of Hermione’s alarm clock, waking them both at half past five. He was feeling his girlfriend snuggled into his side, her hair warm against his chest. Her bushy mane was tickling his face, its smell permeating the air and seeping into his nose. It was a very comforting smell, made him all warm and fuzzy inside.

“What a way to wake up,” he whispered, eliciting a small, tired smile from the girl in his arms. “Merry Christmas, dear”

“Merry Christmas, Harry,” she gave the greeting back. “Oh, Harry, I’m so happy to be here with you, on Christmas.”

“As am I. Shall we meet again in, say half an hour?” he inquired of the contently smiling girl snuggled into his chest.

She slightly shook her head, having raised it a bit to allow her to do exactly that. “Make that an hour, I plan on taming my hair for the occasion.”

“Okay, an hour then,” Harry chuckled, cuddling into her curls a bit, pre-empting the point he was hoping to make next. “But you know I love your hair, right?”

“I know, you noble man. It’s me who doesn’t,” she chuckled back.

OOOOOOOO

The allotted hour later, meaning half past six, Harry had the distinct pleasure of watching his girlfriend step down the stairs in her specially bought Christmas jumper. It was woolly, it was red, it had a large, green tree on the front and it was a way of poking fun at the Weasley jumper Harry expected to receive later that day. Hermione had never received one.

“Hello again,” Harry greeted her as she, and her perfectly straight hair, reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey. How long have you been down here?” she inquired, smiling and playing with her chestnut tresses a little.

“About half an hour,” he chuckled back.

“Merry Christmas,” Hermione repeated her earlier sentiment. “This will be such a great day, if I have anything to do with it.”

“For me, it already is. I’ve got you here and there’s Neville and his gran. No false friends and hardly any ulterior motives, and all those are inside our heads. All of them very well-meaning and no manipulating intended whatsoever,” Harry answered her sentiments with a contented sigh thrown in for good measure. “So, when did Augusta say there would be breakfast?”

“I think she said at eight, but if we were hungry, we should call Pappy and ask for some chocolate,” she remarked with a slightly miffed look. She knew Pappy was treated well with the Longbottoms, but the issue of house elves was always going to get this type of reaction.

“We should do that. We should also think about getting Dobby free,” Harry commented, thinking of his friend still being tortured by the Malfoys. With Sirius still inside Azkaban, their track record for friends was not good.

“I know, and Sirius too,” Hermione sighed back with a wistful look. “You know he talked with me, a lot?”

“No, I never noticed. What ever about?” he queried. This was really getting to be an interesting conversation.

“Loads of things. You know I don’t have a real father; it was nice being able to just talk to an older guy about whatever I needed to talk about. I think he was hoping for you and me to happen, even in the old timeline.” She smiled wistfully at that. How much that would have changed.

“You know as well as I do, that could never have become reality, not with Ronald and Ginevra interfering,” Harry commented sadly, giving off a slight shudder. Those two, the youngest Weasley especially, were a sore spot for him. The fact that, at the time he had been willing to go along with everything she did, did not make what she had done easier to accept for him. If anything, it made it worse. He had been forced to contribute to his own violation.

“Harry, you alright?” he heard Hermione’s worried voice from beside him.

“I’m fine,” he gave an almost automatic answer. With some time to think about it afterwards, he realized this was an answer that would never satisfy Hermione, not as his friend and certainly even less as his girlfriend.

“Of course, dear. I won’t pry, but you know you can talk to me, right?” she stated earnestly, even though the look of dissent on her face was plainly visible; much like Harry, she was someone who wanted problems to be solved, right away if at all possible.

“Sure. About something else,” he started his incredibly obvious diversion, “I have been thinking and I have an idea about some stuff we could do to not only defeat Voldemort, but help with the problem of the pureblood bigots.”

Now this was something Harry knew would always get Hermione’s concentration away from anything else. He knew she was prepared to leave Britain with him should it prove necessary, be it due to Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the general backwardness of magical society or even Dumbledore’s machinations, but he was also aware that they would both rather stay in their home country.

“Let’s hear that idea then,” she almost demanded, the intense interest she held for this idea plain to hear.

“We have to slowly change minds, for that we will need two things: money and influence. I hate to sound so Malfoy-ish, but it’s a simple truth. So, what if we started doing the same with other muggle technology as we did with the glasses? Self-heating tea cups for the young witch or wizard not allowed to do magic yet, pens and pencils with self-multiplying ink to get rid of these annoying quills and ink bottles, that kind of stuff. If we keep it away from muggles, maybe fit it with an enchantment so only magicals can access the special features we would not even be in violation with Ministry rules and the statute of secrecy,” he proposed, the excitement over his idea barely containable.

“That would be great,” his girlfriend answered, equally excited. “If we start there and then broaden our catalogue, we could even get some electronics to work with magic. We acquire money and influence we can use to make society better, while also changing minds, just a little at a time.”

OOOOOOOO

The group of merry people were greeted at breakfast by a very enthusiastic elf, somehow able to wear a red Christmas hat. He must have transfigured something, Harry mused. They enjoyed a lively meal followed by an exchange of presents. They had all agreed to give the presents they had for each other directly, one by one, to be able to watch the others’ faces as they opened their respective presents.

“Merry Christmas, Augusta,” Hermione wished their host, Harry holding out the beautiful wooden raven statue they had picked up at Woodworm’s shop and it was an instant hit with the bird-obsessed old lady. Also, it was a perfect opportunity to place their cover story for their detour into Knockturn Alley.

“We kind of got lost on our trip to Diagon Alley,” Harry started their sort-of-explanation. “We ended up in some place called Knockturn Alley and it was really creepy. Some shop-owner helped us, we saw this in his shop and thought it would make for a great present.”

“It does, you are right. I’m just relieved you got out of there well, it’s not the kind of place children should be. Don’t get me wrong, not that much actually illegal is going on there, just a bit, but it is all very seedy,” the old lady in question reacted to her present.

Further gifts were exchanged, though Harry and Hermione did not have anything for each other. They had reached an agreement that they both had no idea what to give the other, beside the wands Hermione would only accept as a gift if it was indeed for Christmas. Harry had declared the best present was having Hermione with him.

“This Neville, is the product of our Christmas shopping trip for you,” Hermione started describing their purchase while Harry pulled out the package. “Open it and we’ll show you how it’s used.”

That was just what Neville did and soon before them lay the elegant craftsmanship that was the wand holster. Harry pulled out his old… spatula and tapped the piece of leather. “Leg,” he ordered, an order the holster followed immediately, forming into the leg configuration and awaiting the wand it was to carry.

“This,” Harry took over the explanation from Hermione, “is a wand holster. It fits to your leg, arm or waist and allows you to safely store your wand. I’ve been told that you would not be the first to seriously injure yourself by wearing it in your back pocket. You just tap it with your wand and say which form you want it to take. And don’t worry about underage magic,” he added at Augusta’s disapproving look, “you don’t cast anything, it’s all in the holster.”

That seemingly ended both Augusta’s disapproval as well as Neville’s confusion and the gift-giving proceeded. From Neville, Harry and Hermione both received books on wizarding culture (different ones, because he said he was sure they would switch later anyway). Augusta gave both of them an assortment of stationary, which was quickly stashed away to further their research on integrating muggle and wizarding advancements.

Shortly after this had proceeded, the expected, but nonetheless unwelcome sight of Errol, the flying mop, appeared at the window of Longbottom Manor, carrying both an envelope and a letter. Harry was close to blowing the handle, as Hermione seemed to be very well aware, and the only thing keeping him from blowing his top at the moment was in fact Hermione. Still, what was the woman thinking, sending gifts to boys she had never met, who did not even have any ties to them, except being somewhat friendly with her twin sons.

“Hey Harry, you okay? You seem like you’re gonna attack someone,” Neville asked jokingly, but with a hint of concern behind his mirth.

“Nothing’s okay, but that’s got nothing to do with you,” Harry answered, feeling a little guilty for scaring their friend. “I just think that’s Weasley’s owl, he said his mother would send me a gift _‘knowing I didn’t expect any’_ ,” he imitated Weasley’s self-centred blabbering from before the holidays.

“Let’s just take a look at the letter, this should be fun,” Hermione proposed as she grabbed her boyfriend’s shoulder. It really sucked having to pretend they were just friends. Following her suggestion Harry took the letter from the half-dead owl and opened it.

_Dear Harry,_

_You probably know who I am, I expect my son already told you about me. After my little Ron told me you did not expect any presents for Christmas, I just had to do something. He told me about what a great boy you are from talking with you, considering who your parents were there was never any way you could have turned out differently._

_In the hopes this gift will cheer you up,_

_Molly Weasley_

Harry stared at the letter indignantly, internally musing how intrusive and overbearing a person could be, just assuming he would not get any presents, all this on the word of a boy who had repeatedly antagonized Harry’s _real_ friends all throughout the year.

Ron’s assumption of Harry lacking presents was soon proven to be as false as his claim of having extensively talked to Harry by the arrival of not only one, two or three, but four owls all bearing wrapped gifts, addressed to at least one of the three friends.

The largest and ironically lightest present just had Harry’s name on it in a handwriting he now clearly identified as the old meddler’s. This was good as far as their plans were concerned; while they did not strictly _need_ the cloak for these plans, it would certainly help having it with them nonetheless.

 _“We’ll just have to check it for any tracking charms, first,”_ Harry chuckled, laughing about what they planned to do with any of these charms they found. The ‘use it well’ message was quickly discarded, knowing what was behind it and Harry could move on to his other presents.

First, there was Hannah and Susan: They had thrown something together that looked suspiciously like Susan had gotten her aunt to part with two of her duelling handbooks, only these things were annotated with a number of useful tips and tricks for success and survival in Hogwarts they had gained from older students in their house.

Daphne, knowing of Harry’s interest in Greek and Latin language and history, although unaware of his ever-growing understanding of at least the language part, had gotten him an interesting book on ancient Greek sorcerers and cultural magic. Especially the chapter on the Pythia of Delphi and the rituals surrounding her looked very fascinating.

For Hermione, whose continued fascination with the more peculiar differences and idiosyncrasies of wizarding culture in comparison to muggle culture the Greengrass daughter had noticed, she had two much smaller books: _The Young Pureblood Lady_ , containing all kinds of ‘helpful’ advice on getting a fitting husband of proper station and _Muggles, an experienced wizard’s view_ detailing the rather backward attitude and information some of the purebloods had on the muggle world. Quite disconcerting, really, but also quite funny to read.

Tracey had simply sent them both an assortment of sweets, but what sweets those were. The Davis family was heavily invested in luxury articles the entire wizarding world was rubbing their hands for and their chocolates and pastries were among the best one could ever hope to get their hands on.

Well, now the three of them had their hands on some those, and the only way these delicious treats would be leaving their tasteful packaging would be followed by a quick trip into their mouths.

OOOOOOOO

A few days after boxing day, Harry, Hermione, Neville and surprisingly Pappy the house elf had spent that day with an invigorating game of ‘capture the castle’ with snow balls, Harry again found himself in the bowels of Gringott’s bank for the continuation of their adjourned meeting from before Christmas, Hermione at his side.

“Harry, I hope you had a nice few days. Don’t bother asking me the same, we goblins do not celebrate Christmas, or the pagan original humans have for some reason decided to piggyback it onto,” they were greeted by Ironclaw, with Blacktooth keeping in the background.

After both he and Hermione had answered in the affirmative, the two were bid to sit while Blacktooth got out his thick ledger again.

“As you know we were not able to complete dealing with the will you were here last time. If you were to kindly request for the matter of an executor to be dealt with, we could continue with that business,” Ironclaw continued, complete with his now familiar conspiratorial grin.

The better part of their day was then spent making the necessary arrangements for keeping Pettigrew and Dumbledore out of things, at least as long as it would take to get Harry out of the old meddler’s grasp and into hands more capable of caring for a child. That this man was the headmaster of the foremost wizarding school in the whole of Britain and he seemed to be totally unequipped to handle this particular responsibility did not bode well for the future of the wizarding world, as far as any of them were concerned.

OOOOOOOO

Time was flying by and soon the day of Hermione and the boys returning to Hogwarts was growing ever closer. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one’s perspective, there was still one item left on their to-do list: Harry’s guardianship.

With Albus Dumbledore being found lacking as the executor of the Potters’ will, signalled by his more than ten years long inaction on the matter, someone new had been appointed to that position; a goblin.

From what Hermione had by now seen of the goblins they could be completely miserable, antagonistic creatures, carried their fair share of misogyny and were bloodthirsty as hell, with a viciousness only rivalled by the Dark Lord himself, but the one defining characteristic that unified them all was their honour. Not the same way humans understood the term, but still. In Goblin culture, there was no bigger insult than to question one’s honour and no bigger punishment for a crime than to face banishment after being dishonoured. Death would be taken over that by almost any goblin. With one of the crimes that carried this sentence being to break someone’s codified trust, she was more than willing to support Harry in his decision to ask for a goblin.

This way, Dumbledore had been ousted and around half of the money he had paid the Dursleys had been taken out of his vault due to him neglecting his duties by giving them too much for Harry’s ‘care’. In his stead, Blacktooth now saw to it that those Harry had not asked for to not receive their inheritance got what they were owed. Mainly, this was Remus as Sirius was sadly still unavailable to receive anything, while Wormtail’s part of the inheritance was currently stuck somewhere in the system, ostensibly being processed to be received by his next of kin in his stead. It would take months to facilitate the necessary checks in the archive; Blacktooth had amusedly admitted it might even be years.

However, Remus had been found somewhere in Europe protecting a family of very, _very_ wealthy muggles who had learned of the magic around them due to their muggleborn daughter. Considering the amount of danger they were often in, they had hired Remus as their ‘security consultant’. This had left him in the unfulfilling situation of having to deal with Harry over owl post; that is until that day, and Hermione was almost as excited as her boyfriend.

They were currently sitting in a nice little muggle café they had chosen for being more inconspicuous than anything in the magical world, especially with having Harry Potter there. This was necessary due to the nature of their expected talk, because both Harry and Hermione had some tough questions for Remus. Only a few minutes after the young couple had arrived they could see Remus entering, his muggle clothes looking a tad better than what they had expected from remembering his robes.

“Hello, my name is…” he started to introduce himself, but was quickly cut off by Harry.

“Remus John Lupin, we know,” he said in a low, calculated voice. They had practised this type of speaking, controlled threatening calmness. “Or Moony, for his friends. Considering my parents were a few of those you were, as you know, mentioned in their will, actually as one of my prospective guardians.”

This struck Remus in the heart, as much was obvious. He just plopped down on the chair he had been provided with and stared at Harry dumbfounded.

“Considering this, I would like to know why you never checked up on me. Granted, you did not know about the will, but it’s obvious you were quite close to my parents, so why? Because I definitely did not have a nice life,” Harry stated and Hermione could see the hurt in the words by his posture and hear it in his voice.

 _“Granger, go hug your boyfriend,”_ that inner voice encouraged her against her compunctions in doing that in front of Remus, considering how much he felt he owed Dumbledore. But there could be no harm in a hug, right? Friends did it all the time.

She scooted closer to him on the bench opposite Remus’ chair and enveloped him in a comforting hug, comforting for both of them. These were questions she needed answered, too.

“I…,” the werewolf stumbled, clearly wrestling with his words. “I don’t know what to say…” he gave a big sigh. “I’ll just have to tell you what happened back then from my perspective, right. You know the story? About Black? And about what I am?” he reaffirmed. After receiving two nods from the children he launched into his tale.

“Back when it happened I was in a bad way. I had spent a lot of time with certain elements of society I was… uniquely suited to infiltrate, but what I had to do for that was affecting me badly. By the time the war ended I was already a drunk, and no, there’s no better word for it, nothing nicer. I was an addict, pure and simple, in no way fit to care for a child. Lily and James dying only pushed me over the edge, after that Halloween I spent almost two months never really getting sober,” he related to them, shaking Hermione to her core. Remus had always seemed so down-to-earth, certainly flawed and with a big self-consciousness problem, but she had never expected this.

“After those two months I hit rock-bottom and I landed in the muggle health-care system in Germany, they’ve had extensive health insurance for quite some time now which I had access to due to my cover working there, and it got me the treatment I needed.” The greying man looked at them morosely, a sad little bout of laughter escaping his lips. “I suppose I should have been a little more concerned when I returned after a year and Dumbledore would not let me see you, telling me you were safer the way it was.”

Now, Hermione could actually see tears in this usually so strong and composed man’s eyes and she was sure Harry had noticed, too. “Where did you end up?” Remus asked with an audible gulp.

“The Dursleys,” Harry answered curtly, still clearly feeling hurt and abandoned by the man in front of him. “It was… not pleasant.”

Remus though was as if replaced, the mild-mannered man gone, replace by cold fury. “Petunia,” he asked with such ice in his voice it was almost frightening.

“Yes,” she answered in Harry’s stead, who seemed to have momentarily lost the ability to talk altogether.

“Whatever you need me for, I will help,” the werewolf almost snarled in acknowledgement.

This time Harry, who had apparently found his voice again, answered, “Oh Remus, we are so happy you are asking this. We need you to accept your inheritance, including custody of one Harry James Potter. We already have an appointment at the ministry.”

OOOOOOOO

Just a few days later when boarding the express to go back to Hogwarts, Harry had just given Mrs. Weasley the jumper back, citing having received it under false pretences as the reason and somehow managed to avoid a blow-up, the recent developments hit him again; that happened from time to time at the moment. Harry had a new guardian and a new home. He and Remus had taken a short stroll around the Norfolk property (calling it a house just did not cut it) and were both awed. Combining that with telling him the news of Sirius’ innocence and Wormtail’s continued, albeit miserable existence made for quite the day.

“I’m so glad that paperwork went through the way it did,” his relieved girlfriend repeated the same sentence she had been saying a few times each day since their appointment at the Ministry. They had both half expected some interference from Dumbledore, but luckily the goblins had been able to misplace some of the documents pertaining the restitutions to be taken from Dumbledore’s vault, namely his bank statements. Therefore, he had been unaware anything was going on and unable to interfere. Still, the ministry worker had been mightily huffed at giving guardianship of _the_ Harry Potter to a werewolf.

“Don’t count on it,” he let his more pessimistic, some might even call it realistic side answer her. “There’s bound to be an invitation waiting for me to meet our esteemed headmaster today, no way did his spies at the ministry not report this to him.”

“I know,” came the sad answer from his girlfriend. “I just wish everyone would leave you in peace, just let you be Harry, or even _my_ Harry when we’re a bit older. Just not the _boy-who-lived_ or _the Harry Potter_. Damn prophecy.”

Harry was caught on the wrong foot by her cursing, although he completely agreed with both content and choice of her words.

They met up with Tracey, Daphne and Neville, who they had shortly left behind for an extended goodbye from his gran. Both girls were ecstatic to see their friends again, and though Daphne was getting somewhat homesick already and missing her sister terribly they were in good spirits. Wizarding press had not gotten wind of Harry’s change in guardianship yet, or rather the _mainstream_ media had not, while the Quibbler was holding back the article for the issue to be printed the very next day, just in time for Harry to ride out the worst safely ensconced in Hogwarts.

The lack of publicity for this juicy news also gave him the great opportunity to give his friends the surprise of their young lives.

OOOOOOOO


	13. Echoes of a Future Life

Harry had been right in assuming a summons from Dumbledore would await him when he entered the school. As soon as he stepped through the doors of the great hall, Professor McGonagall made a beeline for him.

“Mr. Potter, the headmaster requests for you to come to his office after dinner,” she informed him briskly in that tone of voice that usually meant she expected to be obeyed, and without question. It was not to be this time, though.

“Thank you, Professor. Did he tell you what this was about?” Harry inquired, although he was quite sure he already knew enough to make an educated guess; there was also that little guess that he had, as to whether he would deign to inform his deputy.

“He did not explain it to me, no,” came the expected answer. The old man never explained anything to anyone, just expected them to do as he commanded.

“Then I am afraid I will have to decline, Professor. I don’t feel comfortable being alone with the headmaster, when he does not even see it fit to inform me of the reason for this summons,” he replied, quite pleased with how sincere he sounded. Next to him, Hermione also looked a little indignant.

“Mr. Potter, it would be very rude to ignore an… invitation from the headmaster. This is a great honour; he does not often take personal interest in a student.” McGonagall now looked mightily offended herself, as if the pure thought of defying the great Albus Dumbledore sickened her to her very core.

“Sorry, Professor, but I have to agree with Harry on this. An older man summoning a pupil to his office, without anyone else present and without informing either the student or their guardian of the reason for this would be considered highly inappropriate in the muggle educational system. Having studied Hogwarts’ charter, I might add that the headmaster is entirely out of bounds there too,” Hermione came to his aid, earning herself a smile a mile wide from her boyfriend. They had expected this message to play out exactly the way it had and were prepared. Dumbledore would rue the day he placed Harry in the muggle world where he supposedly learned to question everything.

“As Hermione said, if the headmaster wishes to see me on academic business he should inform both me and my guardian of the reason beforehand so we can make an appointment with both you and him present. Should he wish to speak to me privately, he should ask me himself and not send his deputy.” Harry turned around, made his way for to the benches and sat down, leaving an indignant and completely flabbergasted deputy headmistress behind.

OOOOOOOO

The following day, classes started again as did work on Harry and Hermione’s little project. They were almost certain what they had for a rune scheme worked out by now would do what they needed, but considering the enchantment fed directly into their sense of vision they wanted to be as sure as possible. It wouldn’t do for one of them to lose their eyesight or having to face questioning as to why a first-year student was injured in such a way.

The couple was currently sitting in Transfiguration, poring over some of the complex diagrams required for accurate understanding of the powerful laws governing shape-changing magic. At least they would have been complicated, had they been normal first years. However, for Harry and to a lesser degree, Hermione, these were just mind-numbingly boring repetitions of tasks that had been almost automatic since fourth year at the latest. The only reason Hermione was not slipping away mentally like Harry was, as far as he could fathom, her unexplainable ability to keep concentrated under even the most mind-numbing conditions. She even managed to stay awake in Binns’ history class. The second time she had to go through the whole thing.

_“Damn, Binns. He’s another problem, dusty enough to be a duster in use since the founding of Hogwarts and older than some of the history he ought to be teaching,”_ Harry mused. _“A good professor would talk with us about the last war and about the stuff we learned from Augusta.”_

His thought processes were halted when he heard McGonagall’s stern voice beside his table. “Mr. Potter, if you have the time for day-dreaming, I assume you have already finished with your task?”

He had indeed already finished; something he could not wait to rub under McGonagall’s nose. The first time around he had gotten along just fine with her, but with hindsight and a healthy amount of paranoia left from being on the run for almost a year, her willingness to unquestioningly bow to Dumbledore miffed him mightily. Unquestioning loyalty, the kind he had once foolishly given the headmaster, seemed silly, downright dangerous, these days.

“I have, Professor,” he answered, holding his parchment out to her, completely covered in the finished diagrams. The professor’s eyes grew slightly, along with Harry’s amusement at her facial expression. It was not that he did not like the stern transfiguration mistress; it was more a general mistrust he now held of people in authority. Surprisingly, his new mistrust in people of power was only superseded by Hermione’s, and the only reason he could come up with for that was ‘the higher they rise, the deeper they fall’. Her conviction and trust towards teachers and leaders had been deep, and it had been disappointed. As far as Harry could tell, only a deep disappointment could lead to the amount of paranoia and resentment Hermione sometimes seemed to feel, without being completely aware of it herself.

“Very good, Mr. Potter,” the Professor who had started it also ended his musing, only to start it anew with her parting comment. “Five points to Gryffindor.”

_“Ah, yes. Those pesky house points,”_ he thought inwardly. Just before the holidays, he had used an especially boring History of Magic class to think about what had _caused_ the rise of not one but two bad Hitler replicas, one of them even at the same time as the vile German dictator. And just as it had been in Germany in 1933, in Italy a few years earlier and in Japan, darkness always needed the right conditions to grow. The seeds were everywhere, as evil was as much a part of human nature as the capacity for immense good, and no one was only one of these, but only in the right environments could it fester and infect more than just a few minds, bring everything out of balance. Polarized, prejudiced societies with an abhorrent amount of unhappiness were just one of the ingredients for such environments.

“Sweetie, lighten up,” his increasingly cynical thoughts about the human nature were interrupted by the incessant, yet extremely welcome voice of his girlfriend. “Your mood is so bad it’s literally oozing out of you. What is going on?”

He just mouthed later and pointed towards the clock, showing they only had a few more minutes to go until break before their charms class. With all the things that tended to be flying around in that one, or otherwise doing rather strange things, it was usually an excellent place to hold covert conversations. Hermione accepted his postponing an answer with a slight frown and a gaze that told him to better be ready to come clean with her later.

This ‘coming clean’ indeed proved to happen during charms, as the diminutive charms teacher had them revising things from before the break, just to revitalize their brains from the Christmas stupor many of them were caught in. This gave the young couple the opportunity to discreetly place a few notice-me-not charms around them, followed by a muffliato, and have a nice, silent conversation.

“Now, what was going on inside your head that had you looking so morose?” Hermione started to interrogate him. By her whole attitude, her countenance, he could see she would not be averted.

“I was thinking about magical society and its dark lords. Then I started to think about that madman Hitler and what he did, then Mussolini and the Japanese Empire… The list is just too long,” he related his thoughts dejectedly, receiving a sad nod in return. They had both seen their fair share of bad over the years. “Hermione, do you think humans are evil?”

Harry could see this was a question that, despite his most recent topic of brooding, surprised her. Not that he could fault her, he had never before been one for deep philosophical debates. She took on her ‘thinking Hermione’ face, an expression where she pursed her lips a little, coupled with a little frown while tilting her head slightly to the right. It was undeniably and extremely attractive.

“I… I don’t know, Harry. We’ve tried to answer that question, we humans that is, for so long. I once even saw a post card asking the same question _‘Are humans born good or bad?’_ ” she answered, sounding worried in a way only she could sound and only he could elicit in her. “You want to know what the answer was?” Harry nodded, a bit less enthusiastically than what was usual, but it was there. “Stupid, for the most part. Most will just follow people they trust, without question, whether what trust is misplaced or not. Who they trust depends on outside circumstances as much as personal deliberation.”

Harry thought about this for a while before he came upon an idea, he was shockingly unappalled by. “Sometimes I just want to grab you, take you to one of those Potter properties, as far away from civilization as possible. Hide behind a Fidelius and let the magical world wallow in the misery they brought upon themselves,” he muttered sadly, with such a small voice he could not overhear Hermione’s slight gasp. “I don’t say I will do it, but just remember how it was the last time. I fought and fought and fought and what did I get for it? Because of my hero status I am either coveted, which unluckily led to me being raped, or I am feared by the sheep and hated by the likes of Malfoy and Umbridge, all for something I don’t even remember.”

He had no idea what had brought on this mood today, maybe the memory of this past Christmas and the idea of how it should have been one of many, not a singular occurrence, or maybe the stress of questioning everything and everyone at every turn was finally getting to him.

“Oh, Harry,” he heard Hermione sigh next to him. Looking at her face he could see the anguish she shared with him and how much she wanted to hug it all away. Unfortunately, this was the moment Flitwick chose to call the class to order.

OOOOOOOO

Harry spent the whole rest of the week in his funky mood, and even though his academic merits were not touched by it, people started noticing. People, in this case, mostly meant other students, because the staff at Hogwarts had shown time and again they were either inept at spotting, or disinterested in intervening in troubling psychological situations their students were in. This situation seemed to be no exception to that rule.

The one Harry’s mood affected third-most, after Harry and Hermione, was Neville. Watching his friend so unhappy right after returning from Christmas with his family seemed to nibble at the boy’s already sparse self-esteem. Therefore, Hermione cornered him in a hallway on Saturday to explain to him why Harry was acting the way he was acting, at least partly. Or rather, make up a reason that sounded real and would calm the boy down.

“Neville, this has nothing to do with you or your gran,” she assured him for the third time already, but his face still showed a considerable amount of disbelief. Maybe Harry’s problems with Augusta were somewhat limited, but the way her treatment of her grandson affected Neville, Hermione definitely would be having one with the older Longbottom, at some point in the future.

“But then why…” Neville started, prompting Hermione to finally follow through with her explanation.

“Because he is just sad, disillusioned, doubting everything. He has seen something this Christmas he never really had before…” Hermione trailed off, not really knowing how much Neville knew of Harry’s deplorable so-called home life.

“It’s okay, Hermione. I won’t bring it up, whatever you tell me, but please do. I want to help him,” Neville pleaded. He was obviously not above using the puppy eye routine on her when he was concerned about Harry. In Hermione’s book, that was a point in his favour.

“Okay, but you can never, ever tell Harry I told you even just a little bit. He has been living with his aunt, the sister of his mother; she was jealous when Lily Potter, then Evans, went to Hogwarts. She shaped this jealousy into hatred of all things magical, unfortunately Harry is magical too,” Hermione explained, already feeling guilty for betraying Harry’s trust like this. She hoped he would understand, it was for their friend after all.

“I think this Christmas showed him what he did not have. He never really knew them, but he misses his parents, terribly. While we were with you and your gran he was constantly distracted from that, but when he came back here it just came back worse,” Hermione continued. She had now told Neville almost anything she could without either terribly betraying Harry or revealing information from the other time line.

“But…” Neville began, but stopped himself shortly and took on a contemplative look. “Why would he remember that now? I mean, he is as distracted here as he was with us at the manor.”

Hermione was in a quandary; how could she explain this to Neville? How could she explain to him how many bad memories this castle brought back for them both, how many things they would like to forget that had happened here?

“What is that title people call him?” she suddenly demanded from her companion, who only gave her an odd look in answer, before following up with some words, at last.

“The boy-who-lived, but what does that…” Again, Neville abruptly stopped, mid-sentence.

“To Harry, this means the boy-who-live-while-his-parents-died,” she answered the question she read in his face. “And talk about that stupid nickname started up again the moment we got back here.”

OOOOOOOO

Another half a week passed and Hermione was really starting to get worried. Being a friend, and now the girlfriend of Harry Potter was bound to have that consequence, but it could never have prepared her for the utter helplessness she was feeling at the moment. Her boyfriend had been downcast, moody, brooding and all the bad things she remembered him being when he thought he was possessed by Voldemort in the old timeline, when he had been living in the fear of having attacked Mr. Weasley. Only this time, it was even worse.

Neville had told her that Harry was also having nightmares, of what she did not know. Her best guess was that they were of the night Ginny had defiled him, for Neville had reported he kept insulting someone as a bitch while at the same time pleading for that same person to stop whatever they were doing. Even the hugs she had grown accustomed to giving and receiving were no solution, because his already intense dislike of physical contact had only grown to the extreme. In the whole one and a half weeks she had not been kissed by him once, and it hurt. She knew it was not Harry’s fault, but it still cut her deeply.

After another episode of Harry just staring in the distance, completely devoid of any reaction to anyone trying to talk to him, she had had enough and went to the school nurse.

“Madam Pomfrey, please, you have to help him?” she pleaded with the stern matron. This was another person she did not trust; surely, she had seen the signs of abuse in Harry the last time, she was a medical professional. Still, out of all the possibilities she had available in the castle, the nurse was the only one she even partly considered appropriate for the problem.

“He is not really talking, not eating properly and hardly sleeping, if what Neville says is true.” Hermione heard the anguish in her voice, but could not stop it from bleeding through. Actually, she was quite proud of how together she was.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do, Ms. Granger. I am a school nurse, not a mind healer. Even those are specialised in dealing with mind magic, not what the muggles would probably classify as a psychiatric disorder,” the school nurse said, looking at her sternly.

“Please, can’t you at least take a look at him, help his body with the physical symptoms and get him a mind healer?” she implored the nurse, hoping to get at least this much.

“Fine, I will do what I can, if you can get him here and consent to treatment,” Pomfrey finally gave in with an exasperated sigh and a sad expression on her face that belied that same exasperation.

Elated, or at least as close to that as she had been the last week and a half, Hermione made her way to Gryffindor tower.

OOOOOOOO


	14. Recesses of the Mind

Velvety blackness was all around and inside him, somehow warm and comforting, more comforting than something this dark should be. It was not an ordinary darkness, though. This was not the absence of light, or the lack thereof, this was complete and utter void. Absolute nothingness.

It was steeped in possibilities, imagination and promises.

Within the void, suddenly he could see a light, bright and shining. Almost blinding him. Inside the light there was a human figure, but he could not make it out clearly behind the halo of light. It reminded him of the pictures of angels he had seen before.

There were also sounds, weird sounds he could not really put a meaning to, beyond that they belonged to beings that were vaguely familiar.

 _“Voices, they’re called voices,”_ the voice inside his head popped up. Yes, that was what they were, voices. However, before he could investigate his findings further, the bright figure faded away again, and the velvety nothingness reclaimed him.

OOOOOOOO

“Harry! Harry, please… please wake up,” a female voice pleaded next to him. He was lying inside a comfortable bed, the air around him smelling in this way too clean way he associated with… what was the word?

 _“Hospitals,”_ it came to him.

“Harry, please come back to me.” There was that voice again. It was starting to grate on his nerves, the way it continued to disturb his peace. Yet somehow that voice was familiar, comforting.

“Oh, Harry.” Again, but now the voice seemed to be sobbing. Harry, that seemed to be his name. Very good to know. Suddenly, he felt a weight settle onto the right side of his body, around his tummy, while slender arms gripped that side’s arm tenderly, but hard. It seemed the voice was afraid he might go away.

He did not want to go, did not want to leave the comforting voice, but all this thinking was oh so tiring and soon, emptiness came back.

OOOOOOOO

This was odd.

The blackness he, Harry, had grown accustomed to was gone. It had been replaced the moment he came around at least somewhat again; it was more of a… greyness now. He could still feel the weight on his tummy, curiously though it now came from the other side.

Somehow the grey reminded him of something, something he had once known quite well.

Light! What did he need light for? Eyes.

He, who thought himself to be Harry, now opened his, a groan escaping his dry mouth. It seemed he had one of these voice thingies, too. The moment said groan left his mouth, the weight on his stomach had moved away, while the grip on his arm had changed to his hand.

“Harry?” The voice questioned. Forcing his gaze upon the source of that voice revealed a mass of bushy… hairs and cinnamon brown eyes. “Wait just a minute; I’ll get your glasses so you can see properly.”

“No,” Harry croaked out. “See just fine.”

He could see the voice produce a new expression he did not immediately recognize, perhaps surprise?

“You’re in St. Mungo’s, potion damage ward,” she started to inform him. “I found you in the Room of Requirement because I wanted to bring you to Madam Pomfrey; you were just lying on the ground, barely breathing.” At this, she returned her head, which Harry now realized had been the strange weight, to his stomach and added a strong grip around his waist. “They would not let me stay with you during the week, I had to go back there without you, but I’m so happy you’re finally awake.”

The voice, no… girl, started crying again.

However, there was something he desperately needed to know. “Just one… question. Who are you?”

OOOOOOOO

“Mr. Lupin, I am terribly sorry, but I cannot answer that with any certainty,” Senior Healer Young repeated for the third time in around half an hour. He had treated some children in his time, and even more adults, but this case was beyond anything he had ever seen. Conjuring up false hopes now could only lead to more heartbreak in the future. “All I can tell you is that a number of things severely messed with your ward’s mind. There was some residue of dark magic, almost parasitic in nature which we removed. That would have been much harder had it been at full power, whatever it was.”

He shuddered at the thought of that; the lad would surely have died in that case. Using his ‘panicking parent’ voice, he continued, “Then there were at least two mind-altering potions at work, a loyalty and a revulsion potion. Those two, in combination with the dark magic I spoke of, really messed around with young Harry’s brain. From what I could see, at least memory and speech areas were hit, most likely more. Considering the gibberish Ms. Granger relayed he talked when he woke up, and how he did not seem to recognize her, that’s the closest I can get to a guess.”

He could see how deeply this hit the man who he refused to think of as a werewolf, in front of him. Still, unembellished truth tended to be the best cause of action in this situation. “I would recommend the following: We put him back to sleep, now that we know there is still something of his mind left to work with. We will have to disable the power binding on him to let his mind heal itself, but I warn you now; the boy, if he wakes up, might not be the same boy you have known before, because we have no idea what his mind healing will erase, leave behind or reveal.”

Mr. Lupin took a deep sigh, closed his eyes, almost in defeat, and then gazed right into Young’s eyes. “What are his chances, and please don’t lie to me.”

This was it, mused the Senior Healer. Damn it, it never got any easier. “At best, I give him 60 to 70% chance of survival, slightly higher if we don’t unbind his power. The chances of him being who he was before? I can’t say really, but if we leave his magic bound, almost non-existent.”

“So, either way, I risk killing Harry, in a way?” the distraught, maybe even the word parent fit, asked back.

“Yes, that is exactly the dilemma you are facing. However, if we keep him from helping himself, he will most likely stay the way Ms. Granger described him as, because I don’t dare to give him any more potions that would affect his mind, after the mess someone else already made. So either we unbind him and the risk of his death increases, or he will stay like this,” he summed up the sad facts, There was of course more to it, different brain regions addled, neural pathways severely scrambled, but the relatives of patients rarely wanted to hear those things. Most of the time, they were simply not relevant.

OOOOOOOO

Hermione Granger was currently sharing a bed with her boyfriend, something she had been looking forward to for quite some time now.

She had expected things to be different for that occasion.

She had expected him to tell her how much she meant to him, tell her good night and to hold her close. This situation did not even remotely compare to any of that. Instead, her Harry was in a hospital bed, unresponsive to most stimuli, just like he had been for the last eight days. The one time he had awoken, he had been talking utter nonsense and with such a conviction she could only surmise he thought he was making perfect sense.

However, the worst thing had been his eyes: Haunted, empty and, what hurt most, not a shred of the love or recognition in them she would usually see when he looked at her.

It had been this morning, just after her arrival in the private room of the Neural ward and her usual short talk with Remus.

Said man now stepped through the door silently, throwing a warm, yet very sad smile at Hermione and her position cuddled up next to Harry. He had guessed, and informed her of it, the closer relationship than simple friends between the two ‘children’, and while he did not exactly approve, they were eleven and twelve, after all, he could not really do anything against it.

“Hermione, I think we should talk, I need to tell you about what the healer told me. You know Harry better than I do, so I will at least listen to your opinion before I decide anything for him.” In a sombre tone Remus informed Hermione of how it stood with Harry and of the odds he was facing. Hermione had been crying a lot the last week, but nothing came even close to this. For nearly twenty minutes Remus was unable to get anything productive out of her, so focused was she on soaking through her boyfriend’s pyjama with her tears and holding onto him for dear life, as if letting go would leave him open to just float away.

Ultimately, she knew Harry would always go all or nothing.

“Unbind his magic. The Harry I know would never want this half-life, trust me.”

OOOOOOOO

A thoroughly depressed group of first year students was hanging around the great hall after dinner, for lack of a better spot. Considering the group contained Slytherins, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, neither of which were welcome in the others’ common rooms and there were no other rooms available, they had decided on the questionable privacy of the great hall to mourn the continued absence of one of their own.

It had been two weeks, two very lonely weeks since Harry had woken from his, for lack of a better word, coma. Shortly after her talk with Remus, Harry had been given the draught of living death to shut his body down as much as possible while his newly unbound magic could do the healing.

Two weeks in which Hermione had been unable to function correctly. She had received more ‘barely passed’ in the time since he had been brought to St. Mungo’s than in the _whole_ other timeline. As for the others, they fared better, but none of them were not weighed down, and had they not been weighed down by Harry’s absence and illness, Hermione’s complete and utter devastation would surely have done the trick.

However, there was one thing Hermione had been able to do: Ascertain those guilty for his murder, should Harry… should Harry not… She had been unable to even think it, not that she really wanted to.

From what she had seen, she was sure she knew who the guilty parties were by their reaction to the news Harry was in St. Mungo’s neural ward. Firstly, there had been, she could hardly believe it, Percy Weasley. He had been easy to spot, because the minute the news had been delivered by McGonagall, not of Harry’s actual state, but of his current residence, he had turned a pure white even Hedwig would have been proud of.

The second clue had been less pronounced, but visible all the same, especially because she was looking for it. Dumbledore had a slight panicky reaction, but not at hearing Harry was in the hospital, but at the mention of the Potion ward, where Harry had been before his transfer to the… Oh damn it; it is a neurological ward, not a neural ward.

The last weeks had even seen prim and proper Hermione Granger swear from time to time. At that moment the snowy owl she had just thought about winged her way through the windows of the great hall, filling the girl with an odd mixture of anxiety, fear and relief.

 _“This is it Granger, this decides whether… whether…_ ” Not even Hermione’s inside voice, it had stopped sounding like Harry, because that just hurt too much, could finish that particular thought. The white owl, who had insisted on staying with Remus and her human landed in front of Hermione, silent as a shadow and held her leg out to Hermione with a small scroll.

With trembling fingers Hermione went for the little missive, but she was so apprehensive she could not get her hands to hold still enough for her to actually get the message. On the third unsuccessful try, a very white and slender hand took hers and pulled it away, only to go for the parchment itself. Hermione gave Daphne a thankful look and waited for her to read it out.

“It says here that… Harry is waking up, you’re supposed to come there as soon as possible,” she read out, eliciting immense feelings of celebration from the whole group.

Only ten minutes later, Hermione was already on her way to Professor McGonagall’s office where she had used the floo before to get to Harry in St. Mungo’s at her weekend visits. Purposefully she stepped up to the Professor’s door and knocked, maybe just a tad more loudly than she usually would.

“Come in,” she heard the strained and slightly annoyed Scottish brogue from behind the door. Normally, this would make her nervous, but not today. The girl pushed the door open and entered with a beaming smile.

“Hello Professor, can I please use your floo? Harry is waking up,” she proclaimed enthusiastically, receiving as close to a smile as one could from Minerva McGonagall. One might think of her what one wanted, and neither she nor Harry fully trusted her, but she obviously cared about her students.

“Of course, Ms. Granger, but I will have to come with you, since it is so late in the day and your visit is unscheduled,” the stern transfiguration teacher explained, although Hermione thought she might just have wanted to come along anyway. Well, what she would find Hermione did not think she would like, because Remus was quite put out with Hogwarts for what had befallen his charge.

A dusting of floo powder and then ash later, Hermione found herself in the ward’s nurse station where healer Young was already expecting her. He threw the teacher coming in after her a wary glance, almost as if he also had issues with Hogwarts. Now that she thought about it, it would only be natural for him to be just a little suspicious.

They were led into Harry’s private room, all the while the healer informed Hermione, much more than the professor at least, of Harry’s current condition. “Your friend is still a little dizzy, but as far as we can tell he remembers almost everything. We also found the reason for his behaviours before this all started; he had been cursed with something we call _Carnificia Animi_ ; it messes with your mind, makes you remember your worst memories and think all your darkest thoughts. The name of the spell means ‘torture of the spirit’. Putting all this together, he really is lucky to have pulled through.”

Hermione though did not really react to that anymore, because they had reached Harry’s room, opened the door and there he was sitting.

His emerald eyes were looking at her. A she could see recognition there. Without further ado she ran towards his bed and threw herself into his waiting arms.

“Hey, you, it’s good to have you back with us,” she whispered after some minutes of nearly cuddling the stuffing out of him. Someone clearing their throat behind her pulled her back to reality.

“Mr. Potter, my congratulations on your recovery. I will be in the hallway for ten minutes, and then we have to go back to the castle. Understood, Ms Granger?” McGonagall ordered in her no-nonsense voice.

Said Ms. Granger was still holding on to her boyfriend tightly, not quite believing he was back with her.

“It’s good to see you too,” he whispered in her ear. “Just so we’re clear, the fact I remember the future is actually true, right? Not some weird hallucination?”

She could only motivate herself to nod her head on his chest because any more movements would have meant distance between the two. However, so close to him she could not fail to notice how frail his body seemed, with his ribs and sternum actually distinctly palpable against her cheek. An inordinate amount of anger filled her at the thought of what she could have lost, what they both could have lost, just over the petty grievances of someone who wanted to influence Harry in their interest.

“That’s it Harry, there will be no prisoners after this,” she mumbled against his haggard thorax, proud of how fierce she sounded despite her position. “Whoever did this will pay with the worst thing we can think of for them.”

“I agree, but I think this is actually not what they wanted to achieve here,” Harry said lowly, almost whispering with weakness. “Look at it, the spell and the potions don’t fit together, really. Anyone who wanted to drug me would know at least that much, especially if it is Dumbledore. What did you see in Hogwarts?”

Thinking back, Hermione relayed her observations. “I would say it was Dumbledore and Percy, the latter probably under orders, I don’t think he has any interest in dosing or bewitching you himself. If I were to guess, it would be the spell and the loyalty potion coming from Dumbledore and the revulsion potion curtesy of the Weasleys. That ‘dark magic residue’ has got to be some remnant from Voldemort’s soul piece.” She shuddered at the thought of that _thing_ sharing her Harry’s head.

“Sounds… reasonable,” Harry wheezed out, nearly prompting the girl lying on him to panic.

“Harry, is everything okay? I’m not hurting you, am I?” she fired off in one breath. He shook his head, only to grimace even more and moan a little. “I’ll get a healer, just hold on.”

Hermione stormed out of the room, almost colliding with Healer Young who was about to enter it.

“Ms. Granger, what’s with the hurry?” he inquired of the _very_ concerned little witch, only to be grabbed by the shoulder and pulled into the room, all the while listening to her description.

“I’m not sure, but I think Harry has a bad headache. We were just talking; I have no idea why it started. I really hope I didn’t…”

“You did not, calm yourself. It is perfectly normal for Mr. Potter to have bouts of headache at the moment. I will just give him his pain potion and then you and Mr. Lupin can stay for talking about the course of treatment,” he interrupter her breathless rant calmly, gripping both her shoulders to halt her nigh unstoppable way toward the bed.

Five minutes and some intense haggling with Professor McGonagall later, Hermione was sitting on a chair next to Harry’s bed (she would rather have sat on the bed) and listening to the healer talk, together with Harry and Remus.

“Good news first: Despite the severity of his condition, I don’t see a reason for Ms. Granger to not cuddle with her boyfriend while we talk about this. It can only help with his progress, and I imagine it will be good for her too.” Looking at the astonished faces staring back at him, he added, “You’re not the first couple I’ve seen that was this young. As a healer it is not my place to judge, just know what will be best for my patients. At the moment, you Ms. Granger are good for my patient.”

Happy, but also a little annoyed they had been caught, especially in front of Lupin, who might already have known about them, but whom they did not trust enough for him to be given a reminder, Hermione eagerly relocated from the chair to next to Harry. Now, basking in the happiness of feeling his arm around her waist, she gave the healer her full attention again.

“To that end, also because there’s not more I can do, I will have young Mr. Potter transferred to the Hogwarts Infirmary. What he needs most now is human contact, which will be much easier to get once there. You will have your boyfriend with you on Monday,” he finished with an indulgent smile and a little wink at Hermione, who promptly went to celebrate a little with Harry. Not much, they were still ‘kids’, as much as it annoyed her, but a few kisses could do no harm, could they.

“However,” the healer started up again, this time in much graver a tone, “Mr. Potter’s symptoms before his coma worry me. They are indeed the symptoms of _Carnificia Animi_ , but for that spell to take hold, there must be something there it can hold onto. This means, while what you experienced is way beyond what can be expected of your mental issues, at least for the foreseeable future, you are in severe need of tackling some things. I will let that stand as it is, but just remember: It is no shame to seek help.”

With that rather ominous though understandable statement, the healer left the room, quickly followed by Remus.

“I meant it Harry, whoever _those_ were that did this to you, they will pay,” Hermione exclaimed passionately. In her mind, she was already working on what would hurt those guilty the most. Helping Percy get rid of his prefect’s badge would probably be a good start…

“I know, and I will help with that…” Harry answered, still very lowly and in a measured pace, “but first has to be our protection. How are the glasses going?”

Under Harry’s expectant look, Hermione quivered a little. Normally she would be the reasonable one, the one to argue well thought out responses. With Harry hurt, however, her protective side ran rampant, so to speak; just like his would with her safety on the line. “I did not really get anything done, sorry. I just couldn’t concentrate,” she responded a little shamefully.

“That’s okay. Give it one more week and they’ll be done anyway. Yours still look great, by the way,” he chuckled, then he went still. Not in the eerie way she had grown accustomed to lately, but in a peaceful, content one. Minutes later she noticed he had fallen into a deep sleep.

OOOOOOOO

It was Sunday morning right after breakfast and Hermione had finally gotten a good night’s sleep. Now, there was a project to work on. While Harry had said the glasses would take just another week, the recent developments and the rather intense scare they had given her, combined with her finally being able to concentrate on anything besides his condition again, had made her quite determined.

 _“See, Harry, I can be just as stubborn and determined as you,”_ she chuckled inwardly, while going over the rune sequence tying the information from the enchantments on the glasses into the visual sense of the user. As all seemed to be in order there she moved on to the trigger, you just had to tap the temple to activate or deactivate the enchantment, and the mental control sequence.

 _“Nothing wrong there either… Now comes the big one,”_ the young inventor mused. The sensory and identification sequence was the corner stone of the whole design, the rest was more for ease (and secrecy) of use; it had not been that hard to find and apply a fitting enchantment for revealing the ingredients of things, but the problem had been the sheer amount of information the runic modification of _Scarpin’s Revelaspell_ in combination with a _Specialis Revelio_ for low level curses was supplying. In the end, they had had to tie that particular function to the wearer’s mind using the mental control sequence as a link. Now, focusing one’s intent on the object one wanted to ‘scan’, as they had called it, called up whatever the two spells could find for ingredients before the user’s eyes, and only theirs.

Both Hermione and Harry were quite proud of their achievement, and while Hermione still had been forced to do most of the finer work, Harry’s ideas and intuition with runes had very much helped them during development.

At one point the idea had come up to have an automatic identification system for anything along the lines of potions the enchantments detected, but that would require the storage of knowledge, which neither of them had any idea how to achieve inconspicuously. While using the mental link would have been possible for that, to at least identify anything the user knew with the found ingredients, this would have made the mental link two-way, instead of just one way. It was a ‘dent’ in their mental armour neither of the two, being anything but confident in their occlumency, wanted. The visual link just transmitted directly into the optic nerve, no mental connection required whatsoever, and that was how they wanted it for the time being.

The last bit was actually fairly standard as far as enchantments went and they had been able to find it in the books about magical optometry; unbreakable, never falling of the wearer’s face, self-cleaning and adjusting to the user’s visual acuity, all fairly standard.

Almost the entire morning had passed when she finished with her second sweep of the runes, still without finding any mistake in them. It was now time for something she really wished she did not have to do.

Hermione asked the room for two large pieces of wood, one of which she place to the side while the other made its way into her hands. Under her skilful use of transfiguration, it transformed into a handsome specimen of spectacles. Setting her blank down, she made for the great hall where the group of her friends already awaited her.

For this day, they were sharing the Hufflepuff table with Hannah and Susan who, as the loyal and friendly Hufflepuffs they were, were nearly as excited about Harry coming back as Hermione, even if it was a comeback to the hospital wing. All through the meal Hermione was distracted, which the others luckily attributed to her being fidgety about Harry’s health.

Soon after, she was back on the seventh floor, working on her contraptions. Actually, etching the runes into the limited surface area of the frame would not work, at least not in its natural form. A quick ‘Engorgio’ later, however, there was enough surface area available on the inside of the frame to put the completed enchantment on, while also being protected from overly curious eyes.

Working the delicate runes, from different languages and alphabets even, into the wooden frame took most of the afternoon. Time to do what she already regretted beforehand; Hermione took the second piece of wood and, with some more transfiguration magic, she had an extremely cute rhesus ape sitting before her.

“I’m sorry, little guy, I hope nothing bad happens to you,” she told the small primate and ruffled the surprisingly docile, unwitting participant in her safety test under his chin. This really was quite distasteful, but so much safer than her or Harry testing the glasses for the first time. With a cheering and several compulsion charms she made sure it would go as easy and stress-free as possible and then put the glasses on his nose.

One minute passed. Then two. Three.

The rhesus ape was looking at her curiously through the window glass in front of his eyes, and then extended his neck for her to continue petting him. Hermione gave a relieved sigh; the little one seemed to be okay. But why did it have to be such a cute animal.

 _“Come on Granger, he’s fine. And it had to be one of these, because their brains are so close to that of humans,”_ her inner voice, with his gradual convalescence now sounding like Harry again, reminded her.

“Right,” she said out loud. “A few diagnostic charms and that should be it. Whatever should I do with you then?” she asked the monkey, already sure she would not quite manage to vanish him after subjecting him to this danger. He would revert back to a log soon enough, until then she would just leave him in the room to himself, she decided. He would be quite content in the room of hidden things and before soon, he would transform back to a simple piece of wood.

OOOOOOOO


	15. Back to Another Kind of Chaos

Through the cold air of a January morning, an owl named Hermes was winging his way toward a small but very high, rickety house somewhere in Devon, observed by a little blond girl in her warmest winter clothes.

The girl was on the way to her friend, her only friend, for a short visit and to talk things out between them after the massive argument they had had a few days earlier. The child still had no idea how that had come to pass; all she knew was, that her friend’s continued ranting interspersed with dreamily whispering ‘Mrs. Potter, Lady Potter, Duchess Potter, Ginny Potter’ and everything along those lines was starting to get worrisome. She had not really wanted to say anything, considering the lively redhead was her only friend, but if your friend is in danger, which the girl thought Ginny certainly was, you had to act.

So, she had asked Ginny about it, about the boy she proclaimed she loved and who would marry her, and Ginny had completely blown up on her. Her mother was not helping either, with her continued proclamations of how great a mother Ginny would be for the new Potter children, with how much she looked like the late Lily Potter. It was downright creepy.

But at least she still had a mother.

OOOOOOOO

It was Monday, 10th of February. This date would from then on onwards be a red letter day for Hermione Granger, because her Harry was coming back to her. Granted, he still had to stay in the hospital wing for a week at least, hidden away under the ‘gentle’ care of Madame Pomphrey, but at least she could see him. Every single day.

The exuberantly pleasant anticipation had made her able to hold back from first cursing Dumbledore (she thought his crooked nose would make a great target), then hitting Draco (he had been lamenting Harry’s general inaptitude, even at dying properly), setting fire to Snape’s cloak like she had during Harry’s first ever Quidditch match (he just always rubbed her the wrong way) and finally doing Merlin-knows-what to Percy ‘Pompous Prefect’ Weasley. She had started to contemplate feeding him to Fluffy, but that seemed like a bad idea, considering it would not only fall back on Dumbledore, which would have been quite fine by her, but also on Hagrid; she did not trust the big guy as far as she could throw him, he was just too much a blabbermouth for that, but she would never want him tried for someone dying due to Dumbledore’s risky decisions.

Somewhat mollified by Harry’s imminent return, she had accepted the Weasley twins’ evil grins toward Snape, Malfoy and their own brother as suitable down payment for any revenge due later.

Nevertheless, she kept constant watch on the three menaces she had pegged as suspects in Harry’s most recent brush with death. This morning it seemed to be Percy ‘Pompous Prefect’ Weasley who needed watching, as he (or rather the porridge bowl) had just received a parcel tied to the Weasley family owl, the shape and size of which let her think of a potions vial. It really was ridiculously easy to smuggle stuff in here.

She did not have to wait long for the first part of the twins’ plan to go off; over at the Slytherin table she could see Draco Malfoy grabbing his face in horror, his skin bubbling and shifting. She recognised these effects, of course, though she had no idea how the twins had gotten their hands on polyjuice potion.

Before short there was a Harry Potter lookalike sitting between the first-year snakes, decked out in green-rimmed Slytherin robes and with a horrified expression at pretty much the whole hall laughing at him. Pansy, visibly holding back her laughter too, finally took ‘pity’ with him and held her make-up mirror in front of his face, on which the Malfoy heir commented by producing the most pitiful (and deservedly so) scream she had ever heard from him. Just moments later, Draco rushed out of the wall in what he seemingly took for dignified pacing. To Hermione, it looked more like a very disorderly retreat and judging from other people’s reactions, she was not the only one to think so.

She would only have to brave this day, then she would see Harry again. With there being only Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in her classes on Mondays, she would probably manage without seriously hurting anyone.

OOOOOOOO

Harry was having the dubious joy of experiencing magical transport for sick people. This meant he was being transported neither via floo, nor apparition or portkey; the healer had said these would all be detrimental to his continued and steady recuperation. Instead, he was chauffeured around in something that seemed to be under some of the same enchantments as the knight bus, the only difference being that the driver was much better. How this could be conducive to his health was anyone’s guess.

Nothing could be said against its speed however, and barely an hour after leaving St. Mungo’s in London the strange vehicle was approaching a castle-like school in the Scottish Highlands. He was unloaded by an uncommonly large accompaniment of healers and nurses, as pretty much everyone who had children at Hogwarts had claimed to be needed for this transport; Harry had the distinct feeling there would be a number of children getting magical examinations from their parents, just to make sure Harry was the only one with potion exposure.

Valiantly but obviously ultimately senselessly arguing against being levitated on a stretcher, the returning student was awaited at the large gate of Hogwarts by none other than Professor McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore, so at least one member of his reception committee was very unwelcome. At least healer Young had informed him any mental contact with him at the moment would be highly detrimental to whoever tried it, due to he still fragmented state of his mind. Of course, it would not be good for Harry’s recovery either, but given that it would just add a few days onto his recuperation time, he could probably live with the trade.

“Harry, how good it is to have you back here,” he was cheerily greeted by the old meddler he had been hoping to avoid as long as possible. Well, nothing to be done against it right now.

“Headmaster, I don’t know you, so I would ask you to call me Mr. Potter,” he said in as friendly a voice he could manage at the moment. “Sir,” he added with a completely deniable hint of sarcasm. Dumbledore looked slightly taken aback and a slight frown graced his features, which he was quick to hide.

 _“Ha, take that ‘Wise Grandpa Albus’,”_ Harry chuckled inwardly.

“Of course… Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore acquiesced, all the while looking like he had eaten something extremely bitter (considering he liked sour things). “I’ll need to discuss with your healers what happened to you.” The sage look on the old man’s face would have fooled a different Harry, something he was not proud to admit. This new Harry, though, knew his rights.

“I’m very sorry Professor, but that is not going to happen. That falls under a healer’s confidentiality oaths, and considering there is not much that happens inside Hogwarts without your knowledge, you will understand I don’t fully trust you with that kind of information at the moment,” Harry explained, now noticing a hint of anger in the old blue eyes. Also, there was that ‘just bitten into a grapefruit’ expression again, which he decided he liked seeing on the old man’s face.

 _“Shit, his eyes,”_ was the only thing he had time to think before he could feel the old meddler’s mind invading his own, thrashing through his severely weakened occlumentic barriers. It was not pleasant, but what Albus showed in his face was far beyond that: his eyes widened in shock at whatever Harry’s fractured mind was doing to his foiled legilimency attack. Barely ten seconds after his attempted intrusion had begun it relented, when a severely pale headmaster fell down to the ground, his eyes twitching around erratically behind his closed lids.

“Mr. Potter, what did you do?” an outraged Professor McGonagall demanded from her student, obviously completely disregarding the fact said student had neither touched nor drawn his wand on the _great_ Albus Dumbledore.

“Professor, I would appreciate it, if you would temper your responses concerning my ward. The ward that has been severely injured while under your questionable auspices,” the icy voice of Remus Lupin cut in. “And just so you know, the healers told us this is what would happen if anyone not schooled in dealing with damaged minds would receive when trying to mentally interact with Harry right now. Considering these two certainly don’t share a telepathic connection nor did they just establish a Memory Link, the headmaster just tried to perform legilimency on a sick student who decided to use his right of patient confidentiality.”

“Albus would never…” McGonagall started what would probably have been her own rant about what a great man her friend Albus was, but she was interrupted by the boy on the stretcher.

“No need… to start with that…” he managed to utter despite his new bout of massive tiredness. “You believe what you will. Just ask him what happened here, see if you are happy with… his explanation,” he finished ominously before sleep claimed him.

OOOOOOOO

Senior Healer C.G. Young was having a splendid day so far. His most recent touch-and-go case had been transferred to the Hogwarts Infirmary that morning, almost completely healthy and with only a short period of further convalescence needed. Not all cases ended that well, but children were hardy.

His happiness was rudely interrupted by the chime calling the on-duty mind-healer to emergency admittance; the message board next to the door gave him further information.

 **“110 YEAR OLD MALE, SUSPECTED MENTAL DAMAGE AFTER CONTACT WITH FRACTURED MIND,”** it showed in bright red letters on black ground. While he was already on the way to the correct room, fast walking, never running or apparating (danger of self-injury) he thought about the proclaimed diagnosis.

 _“Suspected mental damage after contact with fractured mind,”_ he mused. _“Fractured minds are quite rare, and the only at least halfway common mental contact would be legilimency. Whoever that patient is, probably tried to invade Mr. Potter’s mind.”_

This conclusion did not really cheer the normally happy healer up; that boy’s mind was just on the way to mend itself and someone had to play around with it again already. He had of course asked a little about the possible ways the lad could have come in contact with the potions and the _Carnificia Anima_ though neither Ms. Granger nor Mr. Lupin had been rather forthcoming. Be that as it may, he was quite ready to bet a significant amount of galleons that the person he was about to receive as a patient had had their hand in Potter’s poisoning.

In emergency admittance he was greeted by a rather unusual sight: An extremely high number of witches and wizards (all from the Hogwarts contingent, if he was not mistaken) bustling about with scowls on their faces, the whole chaos surrounding a stretcher with an old man, clothed in garishly coloured robes and skin as white as his monumental beard.

 _“So old man Dumbledore had a hand in nearly killing the boy-who-lived, who would have thought? Damn, this job gets you the best gossip, yet you’re never allowed to spread it. I’d refuse to treat him, but then he would know I had contact with young Mr. Potter, and I already know he is not above using legilimency to get the information he wants.”_ All these thoughts were running through his mind with lightning speed while he started to treat the ‘leader of the light’; that title was starting to sound rather hollow inside his head.

OOOOOOOO

“What is going on… never mind!” Was all Hermione could hear from Madame Pomfrey as she stormed into the hospital wing. Quickly taking in the room she realised there was only one bed he could be occupying, the one behind the privacy screens next to the windows. She made a beeline for the bed and, looking around the barrier she was greeted by two bright green eyes.

“Hey you,” her boyfriend said cheekily, holding his arms open for her to rush into, an invitation she followed all too willingly. For a few minutes they just stayed like this, Harry sitting in his bed and Hermione standing beside it, encircled in his arms. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered in her ear, eliciting a small tingle going down her spine. Not the kind of tingle she would have liked (her body had a bit of growing to do for that tingle to happen), but nevertheless very welcome.

Her face pressed into Harry’s shoulder, Hermione had to work a little to make herself understood and with a slight chuckle in her voice she answered him, “You just saw me yesterday. I know what you mean though, and I missed you too.”

They released each other from their embrace, prompting Hermione to climb upon the bed next to Harry. Over the covers, naturally; inviting the Dragon of the Hospital Wing’s wrath was never a good idea. Snuggled up to her Harry, listening to his heartbeat calmed her down immensely and another few minutes passed by before Hermione started speaking again.

“How are you? And don’t you dare trying to sell me that ‘I’m fine’ stuff,” she inquired, adding the last bit out of learned wisdom. Harry was always fine, because that was what he had been engrained with since being a toddler.

“Please, don’t get angry with me, but I actually am,” Harry answered. Seeing her confused look, he added, “Fine, I really am. I just get tired rather quickly when I try to concentrate, because being in my head at the moment is… let’s say demanding, and even that only for me.”

That actually was a more comprehensive answer than Hermione had expected and while containing the word fine, it still would do. “What do you mean ‘only for you’?”

“Well our _esteemed_ ,” the boy started to inform her, giving the last word an amount of sarcasm that would suffice for a normal consumer’s yearly use, “ headmaster recently found out that navigating my mind is quite… demanding at the moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were now lying in the same room, I was in.” Harry chuckled darkly, sporting a vindictive smile. “Serves him right for trying to read the mind of a student he himself made sick to find out what his healers said.”

Hermione gave him a warm smile. It really was poetic justice, though one thing he had said worried her. “What was that about a ‘fractured mind’? Do I have to be worried? And answer truthfully!” To reinforce her message she levelled a semi-serious glare at him.

“Actually not. It just means my mind is still putting itself back together. Concentrating is really draining, but that should be over in a week, even with Dumbledore’s prodding today,” the boy answered in as earnest a voice as she had ever heard him talking in.

“Good, because I need you back with me,” Hermione muttered against his bony chest. Looking up into his eyes, through his glasses she smiled mischievously, “By the way, I finished the glasses. Even tested them.”

The slightly smug young witch could see she had surprised her wizard, who by now should actually be well used to surprising efforts from her.

“That’s great. How did you test them?” the astonished wizard demanded, only to take on a slightly worried expression. “Not on yourself, right?”

“No,” she replied energetically, though she still felt a little ashamed at her way of testing their creation. “I transfigured a little rhesus ape for it. I called him Johnny.”

Harry, by now able to gauge her mood, if not always emotionally equipped to handle it, put his hand to her cheek and caressed it. “And from your good mood I take it he is quite fine. Let me guess; you left him in the Room?” Receiving an abashed little nod he continued, “Then he will be happy there until he transforms back to whatever you used as a basis.”

“I know, and I really love transfiguration, but did you never feel like transforming a beetle to a button is kind of… killing it?” She snorted about her own question. Really, there were more important ones to ask right that moment. “What about our plans?”

“I suppose, and that might just be the headache talking, that you should go for the stone tonight. With Dumbledore out of the way, Quirrell might make his move earlier than we thought. Now that we have the cloak and the map, it should be well manageable. Maybe you could even set up our own little ward if you can find a crystal to power it. That way we know when Quirrelmort shows up,” Harry suggested with an apologetic look at her.

Hermione sighed once, looked at him sceptically and sighed a second time. He was right, but she had hoped they would be able to do this together. “I suppose I should. I will look inside the Room of Hidden Things for a crystal and then get the stone later this night. Quirrell won’t do anything tonight, I’m sure McGonagall will be trying to keep Dumbledore’s condition quiet, but I bet he’ll try tomorrow; the stone should not be there with him.”

OOOOOOOO

It was around two in the morning that the curtain of Hermione Granger’s four-poster drew back revealing exactly… nothing. The same nothing then made its way to the door of the form room and down the stairs, through the common room and the portrait hole (“Who’s there? Never mind I was sleeping!”). She had her book bag slung over her shoulder, containing a small musical box, a length of rope, the heavily warded crate meant for keeping the Philosopher’s Stone safe, healthy doses of the potions required for passing through the flame-riddle and a small crystal she had indeed found inside the Room of Requirement. She had been forced to scrape off the topmost layer of the stone to erase some former enchantments, their runes old enough to have decayed so much as to be completely unintelligible. Afterwards she had added her own little alarm ward, although without the usual sequence used to power the ward from ambient magic; while that would indeed have been useful, better than having to recharge the crystal once a week, it also made the ward much easier to find.

Using the Marauders’ Map she reached the third floor corridor without any problems. Filch was sleeping in his quarters, as were Snape and McGonagall while Quirrell, his dot still overlapping with Tom Riddle, was pacing up and down his office.

A muttered “Alohomora!” admitted her through the door into Fluffy’s den, musical box already playing. The cerberus was already getting visibly sleepy, all six eyelids drooping and drool freely dripping out of its mouth. She could hardly make herself turn her back on the beast, but she managed for the few seconds she needed to place and activate the small ward crystal. It disillusioned itself and the only people able to find it now would be those who knew where it was, unless someone was either very paranoid or very lucky.

Eager to leave the unappealing sight of Fluffy behind she fastened the rope and threw it down to where she knew the devil’s snare was waiting for fertilizer. Cursing all PE teachers she had ever had in her short stint in the non-magical education system she started climbing down the steep walls of the shaft; it was not deep, but given the opportunity she had no interest in repeating the leap of faith the (back then) trio had done the first time around.

As she was just a meter above the dangerous plant she whispered “Flammae frigidae!” and gathered her trademark blue flames in her hand, ready to repel the Devil’s Snare without scorching it. She had no intention of leaving too many traces. Past the plant she encountered the flying keys, probably the biggest challenge considering her fear of heights, but not even this one could hold her back, as with a freezing charm even her mediocre at best flying was enough to catch the key without even jostling its wings. The same charm applied to McGonagall’s giant chess set ensured her safe passage here as well (by now the fact that these were riddles for first years was painfully obvious).

The troll was no impressive specimen and she avoided him with a very handy odourless charm, just like the potions riddle was quickly left behind; she only took a small sip out of the correct potion she had brought and shortly she was standing before the Mirror of Erised.

At that moment, someone triggered her alarm ward.

OOOOOOOO

Lord Voldemort was in a quandary. He knew the old muggle-loving fool had left the castle behind unprotected, although he had no idea, why. He had not even needed to enact his brilliant plan of using a supporter in the Ministry; there was an almost unlimited reservoir of those available, but holding them back a little never hurt.

However, the fact that he, Lord Voldemort, had not planned Dumbledore’s outing was also the problem he was facing, because he had no idea how long the old man would be gone. That meant he would only be able to scout out the defences before returning to his worthless servant’s quarters. Still, a lot could be gained by that.

“Go to the third floor,” he hissed at the pathetic creature whose body he currently shared. Soon, so soon the Stone would be HIS and Lord Voldemort would be back, stronger and more magnificent than ever before; the whole world would kneel before their Lord and Master.

Possessing a teacher had been a master stroke; they were never disturbed by anyone when out past hours, with probably the only exception being that overgrown bat, Snape. He had contemplated contacting him, but at the moment he just could not trust the man, not enough to warrant the risk of exposure. While he would make for a much better puppet than the st-stuttering imbecile, Snape was a true Slytherin to Lord Voldemort’s liking; his sense of self-preservation would never allow him to play host to his Lord, despite his deep loyalty.

When Quirrell stepped through the door of the forbidden room, behind which that oaf Hagrid’s dog was waiting, Lord Voldemort received quite the surprise: There was a musical box playing an annoyingly sweet tune, a sleeping cerberus and a rope going down below the trapdoor.

“M-ma-master, p-perhaps we…” his worthless host started to stutter out words of defiance, only to be immediately stopped by his Lord Voldemort.

“Silence. With Dumbledore out of the castle, no one is a match for Lord Voldemort, not even in as pitiful a form as you. Now, climb down. You do not want to anger me!”

OOOOOOOO

With lightning speed Hermione had the Marauders’ Map in her hands. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” she whispered the code-phrase and immediately let her gaze wander toward the third floor corridor and for just a few seconds she could see two names; Quirinus Quirrell and Tom Riddle.

 _“Shit, that’s five minutes at best until they’re here,”_ her mind started planning in overdrive. Now without any time to lose she stepped in front of the Mirror, pulled off the cloak and looked at her reflection.

There she was, looking older, more mature, yet less battle-worn than she was even now; her face was creased not with worry but with laughter lines. Next to her was Harry, but this Harry was different too: he stood proud and tall and his green eyes beamed with pride and happiness while his forehead was completely free of blemishes, not even his famous scar. On each side of the couple were... she had to take a hard gulp at this, her parents, each of them with a child on their lap, smiling happily. On her father’s lap there was a small girl with long black hair and deep cinnamon eyes, while her mother had been chosen as the sitting spot for a slightly older boy with middle-long curly hair and Harry’s fascinating emerald eyes.

In the background she could now make out more figures, some of which she knew, some she did not. There was Daphne, chatting away with Ironclaw and there were Winky and Dobby playing around with an ecstatically grinning human child next to Susan who was obviously cooing at what could only be a little elven _baby_.

“Yes, good to know. That is my dream, but for that to happen I need to get the Stone to safety NOW!” she snarled at the enchanted piece of furniture. Immediately, the older Hermione in the reflection smiled at her and opened the duplicate of real-Hermione’s bookbag she suddenly had slung over her shoulder. Following her example, Hermione opened the bag too, getting out the protective case she and Harry had created. Without both of them approving, nothing short of a nuclear explosion would crack this beauty.

It seemed the mirror knew this too, because mirror-Hermione opened her copy of the box and dropped the Philosopher’s Stone inside; at the same time, real-Hermione’s box grew considerably heavier.

Knowing time was in short supply, Hermione retreated behind the cloak again before reapplying her silencing and odourless charms, and not a moment too soon. Hearing the troll’s grunt of recognition for Quirrell barely gave her enough time to slip out of the way and next to the door so she could make a quick retreat.

As the double-faced teacher rushed past her she did not dare to even breathe, but nothing could help her against the dreadful smell his turban emanated. Not starting to cough, or Merlin forbid barf, took all her considerable willpower, but she managed.

Reversing the process she had taken on the way down, Hermione left the Mirror of Erised behind, hopefully forever. If Riddle only were that easy to get rid of as well.

OOOOOOOO


End file.
